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Introducing Revenue Meta: A New Series on DeFi Protocols That Actually Make Money
Episode 1 with Maple—Breaking down how they'll grow from $30M to $100M ARR
Most DeFi protocols can't answer a simple question: How does your business actually make money? Token emissions, misaligned incentives, and hidden equity structures have made it nearly impossible for us as investors to understand which protocols are building sustainable businesses versus which ones are just farming liquidity.
That's why we're launching Revenue Meta—a new series by The Edge Podcast where we sit down with founders who are generating real cashflows and returning value to tokenholders. No narratives. No hand-waving. Just the hard numbers on revenue models, treasury management, and how value flows back to tokenholders.
In our first episode, we sit down with Sid Powell, CoFounder and CEO of Maple, to break down their over-collateralized lending business. Maple generated $30M in annual recurring revenue in 2025 by charging a 65-125 basis point spread on loans backed by BTC and ETH. We dig into how that revenue gets allocated, why they're building a strategic reserve instead of just doing buybacks, and what it'll take to scale from $30M to their $100M ARR target.
Why else did we start with Maple? We believe Maple is one of the few pure token plays, one that outperformed even BTC and ETH in 2025. No hidden labs entity extracting profits. No separate equity structure for VCs. All revenue and growth flows through one token: SYRUP. It's the kind of alignment we as investors have been waiting for and exactly the type of protocol we want to spotlight in this series.
If you've been frustrated like us trying to figure out which DeFi protocols actually have sustainable business models, you’re not alone. We hope you as a subscriber find this new series to be unique and complementary to our usual long form interviews.
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🔗 Guest Links 🔗
► Maple website: maple.finance
► Maple on X: x.com/maplefinance
► Sid Powell on X: x.com/syrupsid
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing written in The Edge Newsletter or said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed in our content are solely the opinion of that writer, host, or guest. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this content.
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