Pendle (PENDLE) is the governance and utility token of Pendle Finance, a DeFi yield-tokenization protocol natively deployed on Ethereum.
It is also bridged to Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Optimism, Berachain, HyperEVM, Sonic, and Monad, and used for a Hyperliquid perpetual futures market. Pendle Finance splits yield-bearing assets into separately tradable principal and yield components, letting users fix, hedge, or speculate on future yield. The protocol also runs Boros, an on-chain interest-rate-swap product for hedging perpetual-futures funding rates, launched on Arbitrum around August 2025.
Pendle offers an on-chain market for future yield, letting users lock in fixed rates or trade yield exposure separately from the underlying principal.
Pendle reportedly ranks #2 among yield protocols by total value locked, holding roughly 25.1% share of a $4.678B category total. Its Boros product had reportedly surpassed $14B in cumulative trading volume by late 2026. PENDLE captures this activity through staking into sPENDLE, which entitles holders to a share of protocol fee revenue via buybacks.
PENDLE functions as both a governance and utility token. Holders stake PENDLE to receive sPENDLE, a liquid, transferable staking token introduced in 2026 that replaced the earlier vote-escrowed vePENDLE model.
sPENDLE confers governance participation and a share of protocol fee revenue, distributed through PENDLE buybacks, and carries a 14-day unstaking period rather than a multi-year lockup. Because sPENDLE stays transferable, holders can redeploy it elsewhere in DeFi while still accruing fee-linked rewards.
Pendle's Ethereum PENDLE contract deployed on 2021-04-27, days before the project announced a $3.7 million seed round led by Mechanism Capital around 2021-05-04.
Other seed investors included CMS Holdings, Crypto.com Capital, Spartan Group, HashKey Capital, Alliance DAO, Lemniscap, and LedgerPrime, among others; Spartan Group reportedly made a later follow-on investment. Subsequent token distribution has occurred through protocol emissions.
PENDLE is natively an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, secured by Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus.
It is also bridged or deployed to Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Optimism, Berachain, HyperEVM, Sonic, and Monad, and used for a Hyperliquid perpetual futures market. Pendle does not run its own blockchain or validator set; each deployment inherits the consensus mechanism of its host chain.
Pendle Finance was co-founded by TN Lee, its CEO and a former Kyber Network business lead, and Vu Nguyen, previously CTO at DigixDAO.
Lee also founded semiconductor firm Dana Labs in 2019, while Nguyen brings a background in real-world-asset tokenization. The team is described as Singapore-based, with additional members in Vietnam.
Pendle Finance is the protocol and brand responsible for developing and maintaining Pendle.
Pendle governance shifted in 2026 from vote-escrowed vePENDLE, which required multi-year token lockups, to sPENDLE, a liquid staking token obtained by staking PENDLE with only a 14-day unstaking period.
sPENDLE holders participate in governance decisions and receive a share of protocol fee revenue via PENDLE buybacks, while remaining free to redeploy the transferable token elsewhere in DeFi. A protocol-wide eligibility snapshot for the transition was taken on 2026-01-29.
Pendle's 2026 development centered on its post-vePENDLE restructuring: the sPENDLE liquid-staking migration (snapshot 2026-01-29) and the April 2026 shift to algorithmic, perpetually inflationary emissions.
Boros, its interest-rate-swap product for hedging perpetual-futures funding rates launched on Arbitrum in August 2025, continued expanding through 2026, reportedly surpassing $14 billion in cumulative trading volume. Multi-chain expansion also continued, including a Monad deployment that reportedly became a top-5 TVL protocol on that chain within a month, holding roughly $193.9 million.
Pendle's contracts have been audited by multiple firms, including Ackee Blockchain, Dedaub, ChainSecurity, and WatchPug, alongside Code4rena audits. Ackee Blockchain's Pendle V2 audit (April-May 2022) found no critical or high-severity issues, and reports are published on Pendle's GitHub.
Bug bounties run via Immunefi and Cantina, offering up to $1,000,000 for critical vulnerabilities and $500,000 for Boros. In September 2024, Penpie, a third-party protocol built on Pendle, was exploited for roughly $27 million through a flaw in its own contracts; Pendle's codebase was not the target. Holder concentration is high, with the top 10 Ethereum addresses holding 70% of supply.