Maple Finance Calls Out Orthogonal Trading After $36 Million Loan Default

Summary:

• Maple’s Monday statement said that Orthogonal Trading defaulted on eight loans worth around $36 million.
• The loans were tied to two pools operated by Mavens M11 credit.
• Maple founder Sid Powell expressed shock and disappointment due to the incident.

DeFi lending protocol Maple Finance severed ties with trading outfit Orthogonal Trading after the latter defaulted on eight loans worth $36 million. The lending protocol released a statement on Monday to inform the community of the decision.

According to the official announcement, Orthogonal’s loan accounted for 30% of all active loans on Maple’s crypto lending platform. The defaulted loans affected two liquidity pools – M11 USDC pool and M11 WETH pool.

Around $31 million of the defaulted loans were borrowed from the M11 USDC pool, per reports. A spokesperson for the DeFi lender told The Block that the incident could affect approximately 80% of the investors left in the pool. The loans taken from the M11 WETH pool were worth around $5 million. 

Orthogonal Trading was a key member of Maple’s ecosystem prior to Monday’s incident. The firm’s trading division offered loans to the platform’s users and operated a USDC lending pool with over $850 million in loans at press time.

Maple Finance Founder disappointed

Monday’s statement said the “decision to cut the relationship with the Orthogonal Credit team is not taken lightly”. Sid Powell, founder of Maple Finance, also expressed shock and disappointment at the development. 

Maple will not work with bad actors or with firms that misrepresent their financials or business operations. We are shocked and disappointed in the behavior of others and this is not a representation of how we do business.