2026 is going to bring some of the most exciting announcements in the project’s history. Before we get there, though, it is worth reflecting on how far the protocol has come.

Reversing Years of Bloat and Reclaiming Operational Discipline

TrueFi entered 2025 with a number of legacy issues that needed to be addressed. Much of this stemmed from earlier eras of the project where processes were handed off, wallets were scattered, contracts were unclear, and costs tended to drift upward rather than downward.

One of our core priorities this year was tackling those issues head-on. The most measurable result is the dramatic reduction of our monthly burn. At the start of the year, TrueFi’s monthly operating costs were still running above $400,000. Through systematic cost reviews, renegotiation of vendor relationships, consolidation of IT services, and a careful rethink of every recurring expense, we have brought that figure down to about $150,000 per month.

Importantly, we expect this number to fall even further in early 2026. Many of the decisions made over the past year have lagging cost benefits that will show up in the coming months. Of course, the goal is not austerity for its own sake. We’re ensuring that every dollar spent moves the protocol toward long-term sustainability and value creation.

Another major initiative in 2025 was completing the cleanup of legacy IT and service infrastructure. This included untangling systems still linked to old founder cards and reorganizing accounts so the DAO has clear, auditable control. While this type of work rarely gets attention, it is essential for any protocol that wants to operate responsibly and maintain security. It also took a long time to complete! That said, we are leaving 2025 with a much cleaner, simpler, and more transparent operational footprint than we started with.

Wallet Cleanup and Recovering Idle Capital

Another meaningful win has been the work on wallet cleanup. As TrueFi evolved, various assets were scattered across legacy wallets, multisigs, and smart contracts that were no longer in active use. This led to stranded capital, as well as unnecessary complexity around financial reporting and treasury management.

In 2025 we took a systematic approach to reviewing all known addresses, recovering idle assets, standardizing ownership, and building a clean map of protocol-controlled capital. That effort is now in its final stages. Once completed, TrueFi will have a much tighter grip on its treasury and a clear picture of its resources as we enter 2026.

Completing the Acquisition of Cyan and Growing the NFT Credit Vertical

One of the most exciting developments this year was the completion of the Cyan acquisition. Cyan is a revenue-generating NFT lending platform with a talented team and a product that complements TrueFi’s long-held vision for permissionless credit markets.

This acquisition gives TrueFi exposure to a new category of on-chain credit, one that behaves differently from RWA lending (today) and opens the door to new use cases for both users and partners.

Cyan also launched on Hyperliquid in 2025, expanding its reach into one of the most active ecosystems in crypto. As we head into 2026, we are rolling out a new incentive program designed to encourage activity on Cyan in a way that is economically positive for the protocol. Unlike traditional emissions-based campaigns, ours focuses on strengthening activity and deepening real usage rather than paying for short-term spikes. Full details will be released publicly in the coming weeks.

The team at Cyan has been exceptional to work with. Their culture blends well with ours and we look forward to building with them in the coming year.

A New Front End and Better User Experience Across the Protocol

While much of our focus over the past year was dedicated to internal cleanup and infrastructure improvements, we also made progress on the user-facing side of TrueFi. The front end underwent a complete reskin, giving users a cleaner and more modern interface. Our aim is to make TrueFi feel intuitive and accessible while still maintaining the sophistication expected of an institutional-grade credit protocol.

Alongside the redesign, we have been integrating Keyring as a compliance gateway for the protocol. Now in final testing, this system will give institutions and regulated entities a smooth, secure way to access TrueFi without requiring bespoke integrations or manual processes. Compliance infrastructure is a critical ingredient for bringing larger borrowers, lenders, and market participants into the fold, and we are excited to roll this out in the coming days.

Strategic Investment in Accountable

Another important step this year was our participation in Accountable’s $7.5 million round led by Pantera Capital. We’re big fans of Accountable. They’re a company whose technology and team will provide meaningful synergies as we resume growth in the lending business. Their expertise deepens TrueFi’s capabilities in risk, transparency, and reporting, all of which are essential for scaling responsibly. As markets recover and demand for credit increases, these capabilities will play a central role in re-establishing trust in RWA lending.

Progress on Elara and the Treasury Management Architecture

Although the external funding we expected for Elara did not come through, that has not slowed our momentum. The team developed a robust protocol that will allow TrueFi to operate a capital-efficient, economically aligned asset with real utility across the ecosystem. Even without outside capital, we retain full ownership of the intellectual property and are now exploring how to make use of it in a sustainable manner.

This work positions TrueFi well for future cycles, especially as stablecoins become the gravitational center of on-chain activity. The technical foundation we built also informed our next major development initiative.

Testnet Release of the CDP and Yield-Looping Architecture

We also shipped a major technical milestone: a CDP system on testnet that supports looping of yield-bearing assets. For users, this means the ability to deposit yield-generating tokens as collateral and borrow against them to purchase more of the same assets, amplifying potential returns in a controlled environment. This architecture opens the door for new product lines within TrueFi and potentially allows lenders to access leveraged yield in a transparent, risk-managed way. Early testing has been promising and we expect to share more in the new year.

Looking Back at 2025 with Pride and Forward to 2026 with Energy

We know the last few years have been difficult for the community. Trust was broken and the project struggled under the weight of legacy baggage. That is exactly why the current team approached 2025 with a focus on discipline, transparency, and execution.

We cleaned up operations. We recovered capital. We reduced unnecessary burn. We integrated new platforms. We made strategic acquisitions that strengthen our roadmap. And we laid the groundwork for new products that will define the next phase of TrueFi’s evolution.

All of this happened in a year when crypto token prices were broadly down and sentiment was mixed. Even so, the team is incredibly proud of what has been achieved. These results are the foundation of everything that comes next.

2026 is shaping up to be a transformative year. We have several important announcements on the way and a roadmap that is clearer, more focused, and more economically aligned than it has been in years.

Thank you to everyone in the community for your patience, your feedback, and your belief in what TrueFi can become. We wish you a restful holiday season and look forward to building with you in the New Year.

In June 2025, the TrueFi community approved TFIP-29, finalizing the acquisition of Cyan, the pioneering NFT lending protocol launched in early 2022. Cyan’s arrival brings a proven credit layer to complement TrueFi’s leadership in real-world asset (RWA) lending. With nearly 25 million dollars in historical loan volume, multiple independent security audits, and innovative features such as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) for NFTs and a smart-contract escrow wallet, Cyan offers battle-tested infrastructure for collateralizing ERC-721 and ERC-1155 assets ranging from digital collectibles to luxury goods.

Cyan Launches Buy-Now-Pay-Later for HyperEVM NFTs

Following the integration into TrueFi, the Cyan team prioritized deployment on Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM, targeting an ecosystem known for its performance, user alignment, and rapid growth. By the end of Q2, Cyan’s core lending and vault infrastructure was live, and strategic incentives in Q3 successfully seeded liquidity and enabled borrowers to access instant NFT-backed loans from day one.

The most significant milestone is now available with the launch of Cyan BNPL on HyperEVM. Users can now acquire Hypurrs and Wealthy Hypio Babies with as little as 25% upfront, paying the balance in fixed monthly instalments while maintaining full custody and utility of the NFT through Cyan’s smart-contract wallet. This unlocks a financing model familiar in traditional markets and elevates it with blockchain-native mechanics, giving HyperEVM collectors a secure and capital-efficient way to access premier digital assets.

By combining Hyperliquid’s strong community alignment with Cyan’s proven credit engine, the integration introduces a powerful new primitive. High-conviction collectors gain flexible access to blue-chip NFTs, while vault depositors earn attractive, risk-adjusted yields backed by some of the most liquid and culturally important assets in the ecosystem.

Why Hyperliquid Was the Clear Choice for Expansion

When evaluating ecosystems for Cyan’s next phase of NFT-backed credit protocols, Hyperliquid emerged as the obvious destination. In under two years, Hyperliquid has become the leading decentralized perpetuals platform by open interest and volume, powered by its high-performance L1 and HyperEVM.

The November 2024 Genesis Event delivered the largest airdrop in crypto history, distributing 31% of HYPE supply with a peak value exceeding $8 billion entirely to users and builders, with zero allocations to venture investors. This move created one of the most loyal and high-conviction communities in the industry.

That same community focus is embodied in Hypurr, Hyperliquid’s flagship NFT collection and cultural cornerstone. Distributed free to top contributors and now commanding five-figure floor prices, Hypurr functions as both a status symbol and an access pass to exclusive yield and governance opportunities.

For a credit protocol like Cyan that depends on engaged collateral holders and sustainable vault liquidity, expanding into a chain that has already proven it can align incentives at scale and reward genuine participation was the natural decision. Hyperliquid built not only a fast blockchain but also one of the strongest and most active communities in DeFi today.

Airdropping tokens (or new NFTs like Hypurrs) directly to existing holders acts as a steroid injection into the onchain wealth effect flywheel. It multiplies and accelerates by-products like social classes creation, Risk-seeking feedback loops, Hyper-visible conspicuous consumption, among many other interesting behaviours in onchain economies. Onchain wealth effects create a highly liquid, transparent, global, youth-skewed nouveau riche class that behaves nothing like traditional wealth. Cyan allows for access to liquidity while also retaining the same airdrop benefits and prestige.

Why BNPL a Hypurr?

For most blue-chip NFT collections, buying on instalments carries a painful trade-off: you pay over time, but the asset is locked in escrow and you miss out on its full utility until the loan is repaid. Cyan eliminates that compromise through its unique smart-contract wallet escrow – the same technology that has secured tens of millions in loan volume since 2022.

When a user purchases a Hypurr (or Wealthy Hypio Baby) via Cyan BNPL on HyperEVM, the NFT is immediately transferred into a Cyan-controlled escrow wallet that only the borrower can operate. This means:

• The Hypurr remains fully usable in all ecosystem protocols (staking for yield boosts, voting in governance, displaying in metaverse integrations, etc.).

• The borrower stays eligible for every ongoing and future airdrop tied to Hypurr ownership – including partner drops from Ramses, RedStone, HyperStone, and potential Season 2 or ecosystem-wide distributions.

• The lender is protected: the smart-contract wallet prevents the NFT from being sold or transferred out until the final instalment is paid, giving vault depositors the same security they would have with a traditional pawn.

In practice, this turns a Hypurr BNPL purchase into one of the most capital-efficient moves in DeFi today. A collector can acquire a five-figure asset with 25% down, continue farming every airdrop and yield opportunity the collection offers, and repay the balance from those same rewards – all while the underlying collateral never leaves their control for day-to-day use.

For vault suppliers, the result is equally attractive: high utilization backed by some of the most liquid, culturally significant, and airdrop-generating NFTs in the space. The Cyan wallet makes “have your hype and eat it too” a reality for both borrowers and lenders.

Bringing It All Together

Our expansion into HyperEVM represents a meaningful step forward in how credit markets can operate across digital ecosystems. Hyperliquid has demonstrated what is possible when high-performance infrastructure meets an aligned and highly engaged community. Cyan brings the complementary piece: a secure, transparent, and proven credit layer capable of supporting everything from BNPL for premier NFT collections to broader forms of on-chain asset financing.

Together, these elements create a foundation for scalable and responsible credit growth. Collectors gain capital efficiency without sacrificing ownership or utility. Liquidity providers earn dependable yields backed by culturally significant and actively used assets. Projects across HyperEVM gain a new tool to support demand, engagement, and economic activity.

The launch of BNPL for Hypurrs and Wealthy Hypio Babies is only the first chapter. As Cyan evolves within the TrueFi ecosystem, we expect to expand the types of assets it can support, integrate with more HyperEVM projects, and continue exploring on-chain credit models that bridge digital culture and financial utility.

Cyan was built on the belief that credit is a core primitive for any mature ecosystem. Hyperliquid has built a community that thrives on innovation and ownership. Bringing the two together unlocks new possibilities for both, and we are excited to keep building alongside one of the most forward-thinking communities in crypto today.

TrueFi’s Mission: Pioneering Real-World Credit On-Chain

As we build toward the next phase of on-chain lending, TrueFi is investing in infrastructure that enhances both privacy and efficiency while preserving the transparency and reliability we’ve brought to real-world credit markets. Our collaboration with Accountable reflects this vision: : by supporting a verifiable trust layer for borrower health, we extend our commitment to institutional-grade lending and help shape a more private, composable, and interoperable credit stack.

The Trust Gap: Why Accountable Matters

Traditional DeFi lending faces the fundamental limitation of requiring over-collateralization, which is capital inefficient and constrains economic growth. While protocols like Aave and Compound have proven the viability of on-chain lending, their reliance on excess collateral means borrowers must lock up more capital than they receive, limiting the productive use of funds.

As the industry moves toward uncollateralized loans, establishing trust between lenders and borrowers raises a new challenge. Historically, overcoming this trust gap has required borrowers to sacrifice privacy, exposing sensitive financial data, wallet activities, and business operations to public scrutiny or centralized intermediaries.

Accountable solves this challenge with privacy-preserving attestations. Using zero-knowledge proofs, borrowers can prove income, assets, or other financial metrics without exposing underlying data. In practice, this enables selective transparency: lenders get the information they need, while borrowers preserve control and privacy.

This unlocks scalable under-collateralized lending, essential for the growth of both institutional DeFi and tokenized real-world assets.

A Strategic Partnership Built on Shared Vision

The synergies between our platforms underpin the strategic nature of this investment and are compelling across multiple dimensions:

• Shared Mission: Both projects are committed to scaling uncollateralized and real-world lending in a trust-minimized manner. Together we’re going to build solutions that consider both the benefits and challenges of operating on-chain.

• Complementary Capabilities: TrueFi provides the lending infrastructure, smart contract architecture, and exciting optionality through our ties to Elara and Cyan. Accountable contributes the Data Verification Network (DVN), a privacy-preserving system for real-time proofs. Together we can deliver a complete solution that increases capital efficiency and unlocks network effects.

• Proven Collaboration: TrueFi is already live with Accountable’s YieldApp on testnet, the first marketplace for verifiable yield opportunities.

• Strategic Positioning: This investment gives TrueFi role at the forefront of privacy-preserving, verifiable credit infrastructure, aligning with Accountable’s Data Verification Network and enabling us to shape the next generation of institutional-grade, on-chain lending.

Riding the Wave of Industry Momentum

Accountable’s funding round, led by Pantera Capital, signals broader industry recognition of the importance of privacy-preserving, verifiable, financial infrastructure and the growth potential of DeFi credit markets.

Secured backing from a strong brand in crypto venture is aligned with growing institutional interest in DeFi solutions that can bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralized protocols while maintaining the composability and reach that make DeFi compelling.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Decentralized Credit

Our collaboration with Accountable places TrueFi at the leading edge of on-chain lending. As we evolve our platform and reintroduce real-world lending, tools like Accountable’s Data Verification Network and Vault-as-a-Service allow us to do so with greater efficiency and flexibility.

Imagine a borrower proving income from off-chain sources, demonstrating on-chain activity, or sharing balance sheet data, all while avoiding exposure of sensitive details on public blockchains or even to lenders beyond what’s required for underwriting.

Looking ahead, we’re committed to building infrastructure that supports the next wave of financial applications that respect user privacy while enabling rigorous, data-rich credit assessments. This approach not only strengthens TrueFi’s ecosystem but sets a precedent for how decentralized credit markets can scale responsibly.

Building the Future Together

We’re incredibly excited to work with the Accountable team as they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with zero-knowledge proofs in finance. Their technical expertise, combined with TrueFi’s lending infrastructure and market experience, creates opportunities that neither of us could realize alone.

This investment reaffirms TrueFi’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of decentralized financial infrastructure. Whether you’re a builder interested in privacy-preserving financial applications, a borrower seeking access to decentralized credit, or a lender looking for new opportunities in real-world assets, we invite you to join us in this next phase of TrueFi’s evolution.

The future of decentralized credit is verifiable, private, and accessible. With partners like Accountable, we’re making that future a reality.

Learn more about TrueFi at truefi.io and follow our progress on Twitter. For full details, read Accountable’s official announcement and visit accountable.capital to learn more about Data Verification Network (DVN).

Subscribe now

Rebuilding the Foundation

At the start of 2025, TrueFi’s priorities were clear: rebuild essential systems, cut excess spending, and re-establish operational control. The Foundation inherited a complex and costly structure that required decisive action. Through careful resource management, vendor consolidation, and focused execution, the team succeeded in reducing expenses by roughly 75% while maintaining core development and governance functions.

This efficiency drive not only extended the DAO’s financial runway but also enabled continued progress on critical technical milestones. With the completion of the Elara codebase, the integration of Cyan on Hyperliquid, and the strategic partnership and investment in Accountable, TrueFi’s infrastructure is now primed for scalable, compliant lending activity.

The Foundation also completed a full front-end reskin, now in its final phase user acceptance testing and is on track for an October launch. This new interface will deliver a modern, intuitive user experience and reintroduce on-chain lending through KYC-enabled vaults.

Together, these efforts have set the stage for TrueFi’s next chapter: growth.

Strategic Milestones

Elara Codebase Completion

The Elara framework, TrueFi’s compliant and composable stablecoin and treasury management infrastructure, reached full code completion this quarter. With yield-distributing smart contracts, comprehensive frontend and backend implementation, and 98% test coverage, Elara has been deployed to the Sepolia testnet.

The team also completed internal security reviews and secured audit quotes from top firms and an independent security researcher. Once live, Elara will compliantly power stable income generation, support diversified collateral types, and deliver institutional-grade transparency. It represents a major step toward reestablishing TrueFi as a leader in scalable DeFi infrastructure.

Cyan Integration on Hyperliquid

The integration of Cyan with Hyperliquid marks a major step toward connecting decentralized credit markets with deep on-chain liquidity. Cyan serves as a coordination layer that links lenders, borrowers, and liquidity venues for efficient loan origination and execution. Its infrastructure allows asset owners to access liquidity while retaining upside from airdrops and future appreciation.

By enabling NFT-backed and over-collateralized lending on Hyperliquid, the integration opens a new frontier for structured credit products in decentralized finance. The team successfully bootstrapped initial liquidity for Cyan’s NFT lending markets on the HyperEVM, a segment poised for meaningful growth as DeFi credit continues to evolve.

Accountable Partnership and Investment

TrueFi’s strategic partnership and investment in Accountable reinforces the Foundation’s commitment to privacy-preserving credit infrastructure. Accountable’s zero-knowledge verification technology allows institutions to prove assets and liabilities without revealing sensitive data such as wallet addresses, trading strategies, or API keys.

This integration complements TrueFi’s long-term mission to create a transparent yet privacy-conscious credit layer for both traditional and crypto-native markets. The collaboration also expands TrueFi’s reach, enabling stronger underwriting frameworks and unlocking new opportunities for compliant, real-world lending.

Operational Discipline: The Cornerstone of Growth

Cost efficiency remains one of the Foundation’s most significant achievements this year. By centralizing vendor contracts, renegotiating key agreements, and eliminating redundant expenses, the DAO preserved financial stability while funding high-impact initiatives.

This discipline reflects a cultural shift at TrueFi. We are committed to doing more with less, measuring progress through delivery and results rather than spend. It also ensures that future growth initiatives, from KYC-enabled lending to ecosystem partnerships, are built on sustainable financial footing.

The Next Phase: Scaling TVL and Revenue

With the core infrastructure complete and operations streamlined, TrueFi’s focus now turns to measurable growth.

Reactivating KYC-Enabled Lending
With the completion of the new front-end, the Foundation plans to resume KYC-enabled lending in Q4. This unlocks participation from regulated institutions seeking compliant exposure to on-chain credit, expanding the addressable borrower base and driving new inflows of capital.

Growing Total Value Locked (TVL)
Increasing TVL remains the DAO’s most important growth metric. Through targeted business development and strategic partnerships, TrueFi aims to attract institutional and crypto-native groups to use its time-tested vaults in their borrow-lend activity.

In addition to classic credit vault TVL, we will also aim to ramp up activity on Cyan. While NFT lending today represents a departure from TrueFi’s origins, these high-margin loans are an attractive source of diversified revenue.

Generating Fee Revenue for the DAO
The reactivation of lending activity will directly translate into fee revenue, strengthening DAO self-sufficiency. As lending volumes rise, these fees will support continued development, investments, and community incentives, completing the flywheel between protocol usage and DAO growth. We look forward to sharing more about our plans here in the second half of 2026.

Elara and the Stablecoin Opportunity

Elara, the stablecoin and treasury management project owned by TrueFi, represents an additional growth lever. As the team prepares to deploy elUSD across multiple chains, we expect to see meaningful expansion in circulating supply, which should establish a stable and recurring revenue base from which the project can scale. TrueFi intends to collaborate closely with Elara, supporting its adoption and integrating its credit capabilities when it makes sense. Over time, the DAO will also explore opportunities to monetize its Elara holdings in a way that supports long-term value creation for the community.

Looking Ahead

TrueFi enters Q4 2025 with a clear mandate: move from rebuilding to scaling. The team’s near-term priorities are to launch Elara, activate compliant lending vaults, grow TVL, and begin generating consistent income for the DAO.

These efforts mark the culmination of a year defined by efficiency and delivery and the beginning of one centered on growth and sustainability.

With a lean operating model, robust infrastructure, and a growing network of partners, TrueFi is positioned to reassert itself as a leading credit layer within decentralized finance. Strategic investments in Cyan and Elara provide a healthy pipeline of diversified revenue and future investment opportunities for the DAO.

Expanding Verified Access Across the TrueFi Ecosystem

At TrueFi, we are building real-world credit infrastructure for decentralized finance. Our platform supports tokenized U.S. Treasury bills through tfBILLS, as well as credit vaults that match institutional lenders and borrowers in a secure, compliant environment.

Bringing real-world assets on-chain requires more than just technical architecture. It also involves solving compliance and verification in a way that respects user privacy and preserves the principles of decentralization.

The Challenge: Verification Without Friction

Traditional KYC processes introduce significant friction. Users face slow onboarding, repetitive document requests, and centralized data collection. For protocols, storing sensitive information creates operational risk and added compliance burdens.

As adoption of tokenized assets grows, protocols need scalable and privacy-preserving solutions that remove these barriers.

The Solution: zkVerified Access via Keyring

With this integration, users can now prove that they have already been verified by trusted platforms such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken or Revolut, without revealing personal data or linking their identity to their wallet.

How it works:

• The user connects to TrueFi via Keyring Connect.

• Keyring creates a zk-proof that the user has passed KYC elsewhere.

• TrueFi smart contracts validate the proof and unlock access to tfBILLS or credit vaults.

• No personal information is stored or shared, and no identity is linked to the wallet.
  

What This Unlocks

For tfBILLS:
Investors gain faster access to tokenized U.S. Treasuries while maintaining privacy and avoiding traditional brokerage requirements.

For Credit Vaults:
Borrowers and lenders can interact with verified counterparties through a system that protects user data and respects on-chain composability.

For TrueFi:
We can scale our platform without handling sensitive information, reduce onboarding friction, and meet compliance needs without compromising on decentralization.

Why This Matters for DeFi

As more institutions and assets move on-chain, the need for verification that respects both regulatory frameworks and crypto-native principles becomes critical. This partnership shows that compliance does not have to come at the cost of privacy or openness.

The future of DeFi is not anonymous nor is it fully doxxed. It is verified, compliant, and privacy-preserving by design.

For many, NFTs are not just digital items. They are a way to show belonging to a community, to display taste and values, and to participate in something that feels collective and alive. Whether it is an artist’s unique work, a profile picture that signals tribe, or a membership pass to a digital collective, NFTs have cemented their place as ongoing expressions of culture and identity on-chain.

From Collectibles to Financial Assets

The story of NFTs cannot be understood purely through the lens of art or cultural value. They are also financial assets. NFTs represent ownership rights that are secured on blockchains and can be traded, valued, and used as collateral. For many participants, the NFTs they hold are both cultural and financial. That dual identity is powerful because it allows holders to stay connected to their communities while also recognizing the real-world value of their assets.

This is where Cyan becomes so important. Access to liquidity is a foundational pillar of any financial system. Token holders have long been able to borrow against fungible assets, such as ETH or stablecoins. NFT holders deserve the same opportunity. By unlocking liquidity against NFTs, users can remain part of the communities they value while also putting their capital to work. Whether that means deploying funds into new investments, managing cash flow, or compounding trading strategies, the ability to borrow without selling has been a transformative tool across all asset classes. NFTs should be no exception.

The Hyperliquid and Hypurr Story

One of the ecosystems that stands out in this next chapter for NFTs is Hyperliquid. Built with a grassroots spirit, Hyperliquid has quickly become a home for a new wave of community-driven experimentation. The Hypurr NFT collection emerged as a thank-you to the earliest believers in Hyperliquid. It embodies the same ethos of participation and shared growth that has defined the platform.

The Hypurr NFTs are more than images. They carry symbolism for being early to one of the fastest growing crypto ecosystems and they are traded with enthusiasm as status symbols and as potential conduits to future utility. The collection reflects the broader energy around Hyperliquid: fast-moving, community-centric, and deeply aligned with the ethos of building together.

At TrueFi, we value Hyperliquid because it represents many of the qualities that drive long-term success in crypto. Innovation is matched with a focus on users. Growth comes not through top-down campaigns but through the passion of community members. This alignment with our own values makes Hyperliquid a natural partner for TrueFi as we expand into new frontiers of on-chain credit.

TrueFi and Cyan

To understand how this initiative comes together, it is worth revisiting TrueFi’s acquisition of Cyan. Cyan is an NFT lending platform designed to make credit markets for NFTs more secure, transparent, and composable. It allows holders to pledge NFTs as collateral, borrowers to unlock liquidity, and lenders to access new yield opportunities. By merging Cyan into TrueFi’s broader infrastructure, we are ensuring that NFT credit can exist alongside other forms of lending.

Cyan’s design reflects our belief that all digital assets, whether fungible or non-fungible, deserve to be part of the same credit ecosystem. NFTs are no longer a separate corner of the market. They are deeply intertwined with the rest of crypto, and lending against them should be held to the same standards of efficiency, transparency, and institutional readiness that TrueFi applies elsewhere.

A Hypurr-fect Combination

Today we are excited to announce that the TrueFi DAO will deploy a portion of its treasury to bootstrap liquidity for Hypurr NFT lending on Cyan. This deployment will create immediate capacity for NFT holders in the Hyperliquid ecosystem to borrow against their Hypurr collections.

The goal is simple. By providing initial liquidity, we lower the barriers for holders to access credit markets and encourage broader participation. We see this as a way to support the Hyperliquid community directly, to validate the role of NFTs in credit markets, and to showcase what can be built when DeFi and NFT ecosystems collaborate.

Liquidity is the lifeblood of financial systems. In the absence of early capital, markets can stall before they have a chance to prove themselves. By deploying DAO treasury resources, TrueFi is not only supporting NFT holders but also signaling confidence in the long-term potential of NFT lending.

Strategic Importance

This initiative is not a side project. It is a natural extension of TrueFi’s mission. Our goal has always been to expand access to credit across digital assets, building the infrastructure required for institutional-scale adoption of on-chain finance. NFTs belong in that picture.

By enabling lending against NFTs, we are broadening the scope of assets that can interact with on-chain credit. We are showing that tokens of community and culture can also serve as reliable financial instruments when supported by thoughtful design and adequate liquidity. Both fungible tokens and NFTs deserve to live in the same system, governed by transparency and accessible to users everywhere.

The collaboration between TrueFi, Cyan, and Hyperliquid is also an example of how decentralized ecosystems can align. Each brings unique strengths: TrueFi with its credit infrastructure, Cyan with its NFT lending specialization, and Hyperliquid with its community-first momentum. Together, these strengths create a platform for innovation that could have ripple effects well beyond one collection.

Looking Ahead

Hyperliquid and the Hypurr collection represent the kind of grassroots innovation that keeps the industry moving forward. By providing treasury capital to bootstrap liquidity on Cyan, TrueFi is helping ensure that NFT holders can access secure and transparent credit markets without leaving the communities they value. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to tap into Cyan’s Buy now, pay later offering on Hyperliquid too.

We believe this effort will not only benefit Hypurr NFT holders today but also demonstrate a pathway for other NFT-driven communities on Hyperliquid in the future. When NFTs and DeFi come together, they create systems that are both financially functional and culturally expressive.

The TrueFi DAO is proud to play a role in shaping this future. We invite lenders, borrowers, builders, and community members to join us in building credit markets that are open, resilient, and aligned with the ethos of crypto.

We look forward to building that future with you.

Subscribe now

What Is NFT Lending?

At its core, NFT lending allows holders of NFTs to use their assets as collateral for loans. The process looks like this:

1. Collateralization – A borrower deposits an NFT into a lending protocol.

2. Valuation – The protocol or marketplace determines the collateral’s value, often using floor prices, oracle feeds, or negotiated terms.

3. Loan Issuance – A lender provides capital, often in stablecoins, against the collateral.

4. Repayment or Liquidation – If the borrower repays with interest, they reclaim their NFT. If not, the lender may seize and liquidate it.
   

This structure mirrors traditional secured lending, where a house secures a mortgage or a car backs an auto loan. The difference is that NFTs are digitally native and verifiably scarce, enabling fully on-chain execution.

Why NFT Lending Is Exciting Today

On-Chain Wealth Wants to Show Off

Crypto is not just about financial returns; it is also about identity and community. NFTs have become one of the best ways to signal digital wealth and taste. Just as luxury watches or rare cars serve as status symbols in the physical world, blue-chip NFTs like CryptoPunks or Pudgy Penguins serve the same role online. NFT lending allows these holders to unlock liquidity without selling their prized assets, keeping the flex while putting dormant capital to work.

NFTs as Collateral

Unlike governance tokens or fungible assets, NFTs are unique and non-interchangeable. That uniqueness makes them excellent collateral in many cases: they are scarce, tradable, and verifiably owned. For lenders, this opens an entirely new class of assets to underwrite. For borrowers, it means unlocking liquidity against holdings that might otherwise sit idle.

Attractive Yields

Yields in NFT lending markets can be substantial. Because liquidity is thinner and volatility higher than in fungible token markets, lenders are often compensated with higher interest rates. Borrowers may find this worthwhile because it saves them from liquidating NFTs they believe will appreciate in value or that carry social capital too valuable to give up.

NFT Lending in the Broader Digital Asset Landscape

NFT lending does not exist in isolation. It fits neatly into broader trends reshaping finance:

• Tokenization of Real-World Assets (RWAs): Increasingly, real-world ownership from real estate to bonds is expected to take the form of NFTs. These tokens can function like bearer securities in traditional finance, where physical possession equates to ownership. On-chain, this means whoever holds the token has a verifiable claim to the underlying asset.
  

• Credit Market Expansion: Just as bearer securities once made capital markets more flexible, NFT-based ownership models will make digital lending more seamless. The logic is simple: if you can own it as an NFT, you should be able to borrow against it.
  

• Natural Fit for Lending Platforms: Lending thrives where there is collateral that is both valuable and transferable. NFTs fit this model perfectly, creating a clear bridge between digital identity, real-world assets, and DeFi credit rails.
  

This evolution strengthens the case for platforms like TrueFi, which already focus on transparent, on-chain credit. NFT lending is not a tangent. It is an extension of the same mission: creating a capital market where any verifiable asset can support credit.

Spotlight: Cyan and the HyperEVM Advantage

One of the most exciting projects in this space is Cyan (usecyan.com), which recently became part of the TrueFi ecosystem. Cyan is an NFT lending protocol built by an exceptional team with deep technical and financial expertise.

Cyan has already made waves as one of the first projects to launch on HyperEVM, the programmable layer within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. HyperEVM offers low-latency execution and an environment designed for composable financial applications. By deploying early here, Cyan positions itself not only as an NFT lending pioneer but also as a cornerstone of one of the most innovative on-chain platforms emerging today.

This is significant for two reasons:

1. First-Mover Advantage: Being early in a new ecosystem means Cyan can define the standards and user experience for NFT lending on HyperEVM.
   

2. Strategic Fit: By combining NFT collateral markets with Hyperliquid’s high-performance infrastructure, Cyan can offer lending that is faster, more reliable, and more accessible than ever before.
   

For TrueFi, integrating Cyan strengthens our broader vision: building a multi-faceted credit marketplace where every valuable asset, whether fungible tokens, RWAs, or NFTs, can be put to productive use.

Why NFT Lending Matters for the Future of Finance

NFT lending represents more than just another niche in DeFi. It points toward a financial system where:

• Assets Are Fluid: Whether an asset is digital art, an in-game skin, a real estate deed, or a yield-bearing security, its ownership and collateral value can be recognized on-chain.
  

• Identity and Finance Converge: Digital identity, expressed through NFTs, merges with financial activity. Your wallet does not just show what you own; it underpins what you can borrow.
  

• Credit Becomes Universal: By broadening the types of assets that can secure loans, credit becomes accessible to more participants, with more tailored products.
  

The analogy to bearer securities is useful here. In traditional finance, bearer bonds or certificates allowed for anonymous, transferable claims on capital. NFT-based ownership could reintroduce that flexibility, only now with the transparency, programmability, and security of blockchain technology.

A Natural Extension of On-Chain Credit

The rise of NFT lending underscores the adaptability and creativity of decentralized finance. It takes what was once seen purely as a cultural or speculative phenomenon and channels it into productive financial infrastructure.

For NFT holders, this means new liquidity. For lenders, it means new opportunities for yield. For DeFi as a whole, it means a step toward markets where any asset, digital or real, can support credit activity.

At TrueFi, we see NFT lending as a natural complement to our core business. Our mission has always been to expand access to transparent, permissionless credit. With Cyan’s integration and early move on HyperEVM and existing capabilities on Ethereum, NFT lending is no longer a thought experiment. It is here, and we anticipate it will grow fast.

The future of finance treats art, identity, real-world assets, and capital markets as part of a programmable, on-chain economy. NFT lending is one of the first clear steps in that direction, and we are excited to help lead the way.

From the incubation of Elara Finance to a complete front-end overhaul and tighter operational controls, the Foundation has worked to deliver meaningful improvements while reducing costs and increasing execution capacity.

Subscribe now

Product & Ecosystem Milestones

Elara Finance (formerly Polaris) soft-launched in Q2 at Consensus Toronto and has since moved closer to full mainnet release. The MVP is live on Ethereum mainnet and currently undergoing security audits, with an official public launch targeted for Q4 2025. Over the past quarter, the team focused on sourcing liquidity partners, exploring integrations, advancing technical development to ensure regulatory compliance and capital efficiency, and building out a go-to-market plan targeting institutional and crypto-native participants.

One of the largest ongoing projects is the full reskin of the TrueFi app. Additional API and data integrations, scoped with Akemona, are on track for completion by mid-September. This refresh will not only modernize the interface but also enhance portfolio analytics and improve the user experience based on direct community feedback.

We also advanced multiple ecosystem collaborations, including work with the Tron and Plasma Foundations, LayerZero for cross-chain functionality, Ethena on collateral asset partnerships, and the development of an Elara vault and market on Mopho. These relationships are being developed with a careful, staged rollout to maximize strategic impact.

Through the acquisition of Cyan, we welcomed a group of highly capable operators with a proven product in NFT lending—an area we believe is poised for significant growth. The team has several exciting deployments scheduled in the coming weeks, which should help extend our reach into new lending markets. Over time, we aim to explore ways of integrating this capability into TrueFi, where NFTs could function as bearer certificates for RWA ownership, although that vision remains further down the road. We also made a small but strategically important investment in a promising lending protocol expected to contribute to TVL in the near term. 👀

Operational Progress

The Foundation continued to run a lean operational model while strategically adding capacity in key areas. A Head of Strategy joined in June to align execution with long-term goals, a new Developer strengthened engineering bandwidth, and a Community Manager was onboarded in July to boost engagement. This targeted approach ensures we remain nimble while expanding capabilities where they matter most.

We transitioned from relying on external junior development to having a dedicated Lead Engineer overseeing DAO product work. This has accelerated delivery timelines and improved backlog management, with priority given to the reskin and ecosystem expansion before addressing non-critical technical debt.

On the governance and compliance front, we restructured and directly assumed IT infrastructure contracts (including GitHub, GitBook, Cloudflare, and Netlify) from Archblock. This move improves cost oversight and reduces dependency on intermediaries. We also initiated the Board restructuring process for the BVI Foundation ahead of Q3 elections and facilitated the resolution of a long-standing matter involving a Tier 1 exchange, preserving brand integrity and institutional relationships.

The Foundation continues to consolidate functions previously handled by external service providers. By bringing more of these capabilities in-house, we expect to see greater accountability, stronger alignment with DAO priorities, and reduced costs, with early signs of all three already visible.

Financial Stewardship

Maintaining fiscal discipline remained a core focus in Q2. The DAO made progress in streamlining expenses, prioritizing budget allocation toward mission-critical initiatives, and ensuring that every major spend is directly tied to product delivery or long-term strategic positioning.

Budgets for the coming quarters have been structured to match both operational requirements and the updated contributor structure. The Foundation maintained active budget-to-actual monitoring for all workstreams, allowing for quick adjustments where needed. This approach ensures that resources are deployed with maximum efficiency, and that surplus capacity can be reallocated to accelerate timelines without requesting unnecessary additional funding.

Lessons learned from this quarter’s work with service providers have also reinforced the importance of predictable and transparent treasury management. The team is exploring more consistent payment structures to reduce exposure to token price volatility, providing a more stable basis for long-term planning.

DAO Governance & Community

TrueFi’s governance framework remains a cornerstone of our decentralized model. TRU token holders govern through staking (stkTRU) and proposal voting on platforms like Tally. Open proposal discussions occur on the TrueFi Forum, with an active delegate system to streamline participation. The TrueFi Improvement Proposal (TIP) process ensures transparent lifecycle management from discussion to execution.

On the community side, we reactivated the TrueFi Blog with a steady cadence of DAO reports, proposals, and long-form content. The addition of a Community Manager role will further enhance engagement across platforms like Telegram and X.

Looking Ahead: Q3–Q4 2025 Priorities

The next two quarters will see a strong push toward finalizing and launching Elara, executing its marketing and sales strategy, and attracting significant TVL. The refreshed TrueFi interface and analytics tools are also scheduled for release, marking a major step forward in usability and transparency. We will continue to deepen partnerships and integrations to broaden protocol reach, while refocusing on business development to onboard new borrowers and generate fee revenue.

Q2 2025 was a quarter of disciplined execution, strategic pivots, and laying the groundwork for growth. By streamlining operations, advancing product delivery, and deepening our ecosystem ties, the TrueFi DAO is well-positioned to capture opportunities in the rapidly evolving DeFi and RWA markets. The months ahead promise significant product releases, enhanced community engagement, and the continued evolution of TrueFi’s role as the credit infrastructure for decentralized finance.

We encourage all community members to stay engaged, participate in governance, and help shape the next phase of TrueFi’s journey.

Subscribe now

Uncollateralized Lending: A Catalyst for Economic Growth

At the heart of TrueFi’s mission is its pioneering uncollateralized lending model, a game-changer for the $6 trillion global private credit market. Unlike over-collateralized lending, which ties up capital and stifles efficiency, TrueFi’s approach frees borrowers from collateral lockups, enabling rapid access to funds—often within a single day. The resulting capital efficiency accelerates business growth, allowing asset originators to scale operations, seize opportunities, and drive economic activity faster than traditional or over-collateralized systems. This is particularly helpful for sub-scale borrowers who might be challenged by the frictions of SME lending in traditional markets.

By leveraging proprietary on-chain credit scoring, TrueFi ensures market-driven interest rates and connects borrowers to diverse global liquidity pools, democratizing access to capital once reserved for financial giants. The result? A dynamic ecosystem where innovation thrives, and economic growth outpaces conventional models.

Proven Resilience Through Market Cycles

TrueFi’s lending vaults have shown remarkable resilience, navigating the volatility of crypto markets since the platform’s inception in 2020. With over $1.5 billion in uncollateralized loans facilitated, TrueFi’s robust credit scoring and risk management systems have maintained operational integrity, with no recorded exploits compromising its vault infrastructure. Despite facing credit losses during the 2022 market downturn, the platform’s transparent on-chain architecture and TRU token staking mechanisms preserved lender confidence. Hardened by these challenges, TrueFi’s ongoing turnaround initiatives—including a user-friendly front-end redesign and innovative offerings like the Elara stablecoin—are poised to strengthen the platform, enhancing accessibility and performance for all users.

Turnaround Initiatives: A Bold Vision for the Future

TrueFi is in the midst of an ambitious turnaround, rolling out transformative initiatives to cement its leadership in DeFi. Key developments include:

• Elara: Yield-Bearing Stablecoin: TrueFi is launching Elara, a yield-bearing stablecoin designed to offer stable, regulatory-compliant returns for holders, bridging the gap between traditional finance and DeFi. Elara aims to provide investors with a low-risk, high-reward asset that integrates seamlessly with TrueFi’s lending pools.

• Front-End Reskinning: A sleek, user-friendly front-end overhaul is underway, enhancing accessibility and usability for both retail and institutional users. This redesign will streamline onboarding and portfolio management, making TrueFi’s platform more intuitive than ever.

• New Business Development Initiatives: TrueFi is forging partnerships to bring compliant, high-yield opportunities to lenders, including innovative lending pools with yields up to 20% for market makers and payment service providers. Collaborations with firms like Cicada and Akemona are expanding TrueFi’s real-world asset (RWA) offerings, attracting global investors.

• A Glimpse at Cyan: TrueFi recently acquired Cyan, an NFT platform, signaling its expansion into new DeFi frontiers. Stay tuned for more details on how this deal will unlock novel opportunities for TrueFi’s ecosystem.

These initiatives position TrueFi to capture growing demand for decentralized, compliant financial solutions, aligning with the broader DeFi market’s projected growth to $232 billion by 2030.

Empowering Small Asset Originators

TrueFi’s infrastructure levels the playing field for small asset originators, enabling them to launch investment strategies and tap global liquidity from day one. By bringing alternative investments on-chain, TrueFi eliminates traditional barriers, such as high operational costs and gatekeeping by large institutions. Smart contract automation streamlines fund administration, reporting, and compliance, allowing smaller players to scale efficiently in a decentralized, global market.

Unlocking High-Yield Opportunities for Lenders

Lenders on TrueFi will soon enjoy access to a diverse array of crypto-native and real-world asset-backed loans, with some of DeFi’s most competitive yields. The platform’s transparent, on-chain architecture provides real-time visibility into capital flows, fostering trust and accountability unmatched by traditional private credit markets. TRU token staking and robust encryption protocols further protect lenders, ensuring sustainable returns even in volatile markets.

Pioneering the Future of Finance

TrueFi’s vision extends far beyond DeFi, aiming to transform the global credit market by bridging traditional and decentralized finance. With innovations like tokenized real-world assets (e.g., U.S. Treasury bill tokens) and plans for international RWA expansion, TrueFi is redefining financial accessibility. By addressing structural inefficiencies and embracing blockchain’s potential, TrueFi is building a transparent, inclusive financial ecosystem where institutional and retail participants can thrive.

Join TrueFi today and be part of the DeFi revolution—where capital flows freely, opportunities abound, and the future of finance is now.

Private credit—now greater than $6 trillion globally—is one of the fastest-growing segments in finance. As banks retreat from certain forms of lending and institutional appetite for yield grows, non-bank credit has surged. Yet despite this growth, the market remains largely opaque, illiquid, and difficult to access. Hence, it’s dominated by a handful of large players and manual, relationship-driven processes.

Meanwhile, most DeFi lending protocols remain confined to overcollateralized, crypto-native models, rendering them incapable of serving real-world businesses that need working capital, stablecoin liquidity, or more flexible credit terms.

TrueFi is purpose-built to address this gap. By fusing blockchain infrastructure with principles of institutional credit, TrueFi delivers a transparent, efficient, and programmable platform for uncollateralized lending—paving the way for a new form of open, on-chain private credit. The flexiblity of smart contract infrastructure allows TrueFi to service debt across consistently growing global demand for credit yields, b

Beyond Overcollateralization: TrueFi’s Core Innovation

Unlike leading DeFi platforms such as Morpho and Aave (which require borrowers to lock up significantly more in collateral than they borrow) TrueFi enables fully uncollateralized loans through third-party credit assessments and legally binding agreements.

This fundamental shift solves DeFi’s capital efficiency problem while unlocking lending opportunities for traditional businesses that don’t hold crypto but would benefit from access to on-chain stablecoin liquidity.

Proven Market Traction

Since launching in November 2020, TrueFi has demonstrated real-world execution:

• Nearly $2 billion in uncollateralized loans originated

• Approximately $40 million distributed to lenders
  

These metrics validate TrueFi’s thesis: blockchain can support sophisticated credit decisions, improving both efficiency and scale in capital markets.

Bridging Traditional Finance and DeFi

TrueFi accelerat3ed adoption of crypto and RWAs by forming strategic partnerships that connect traditional finance to decentralized infrastructure:

• Adapt3r Digital: Launched tokenized portfolios offering on-chain access to U.S. Treasury yields—bringing the stability of government securities to DeFi-native investors.

• Cicada Partners: Introduced third-party risk assessments and legal structuring tailored to businesses seeking stablecoin financing, aligning blockchain lending with traditional compliance standards.
  

These partnerships showcase TrueFi’s broader vision: to serve real financial needs across both crypto-native and off-chain economies.

At the same time, we’re investing in building in-house credit and structuring capabilities—enabling us to underwrite, service, and support more complex lending relationships natively on-chain. By combining strategic partnerships with internal development, TrueFi is laying the foundation for a more vertically integrated and resilient credit protocol—capable of supporting institutional borrowers, innovative credit products, and evolving market needs.

Reimagining Credit Infrastructure

TrueFi’s flexible credit lines echo traditional Revolving Lines of Credit (RLOCs), but with three key advantages:

• Radical Transparency: All loan activity is recorded on-chain, offering lenders full visibility into capital allocation and borrower behavior—something rarely seen in TradFi.

• Democratized Access: Direct lending, once reserved for large institutions, becomes accessible to a wider range of participants. This has the potential of unlocking higher returns for LPs while reducing costs for borrowers.

• Programmable Compliance: Smart contracts enforce loan terms automatically, reducing counterparty risk while ensuring regulatory alignment.
  
  

The Path Forward

As traditional finance continues to integrate blockchain technology, TrueFi is emerging as a benchmark for automated, market-driven lending infrastructure. By addressing structural inefficiencies in both TradFi and early-stage DeFi, TrueFi is building the credit rails needed to scale uncollateralized lending globally.

Still early in its journey, TrueFi represents one of the most credible and scalable approaches to bringing the $8 trillion global credit market on-chain—transforming how capital flows to businesses, and creating new opportunities for investors, DAOs, and protocols alike.

Born out of the TrustToken ecosystem, the protocol set out to solve a core limitation of blockchain finance—how to assess creditworthiness and enable access to capital without relying on overcollateralization. Backed by over $31 million in early-stage funding, TrueFi launched with a clear mission: use smart contracts, community governance, and hybrid credit models to bring both real-world and crypto-native borrowers on-chain.

What We Built

Over its initial phases, TrueFi pioneered several firsts that helped expand the boundaries of decentralized credit:

• KYC-enabled institutional lending pools that bridged TradFi compliance with DeFi efficiency

• Uncollateralized loans backed by enforceable legal agreements

• Liquid exit mechanisms offering lenders capital flexibility

• On-chain governance powered by the TRU token, enabling community-directed evolution

By mid-2021, TrueFi had originated hundreds of millions in loans across USDC, TUSD, and USDT, validating the idea that creditworthiness could exist on-chain, without collateral.

The Crucible

The 2022–2023 cycle tested not just TrueFi, but the entire thesis of DeFi credit. What began as a bull-market experiment was thrown into its first true stress test—a crucible forged by some of the harshest conditions in crypto's history.

A convergence of systemic risks created the perfect storm:

• Macro headwinds: Rising interest rates made risk-on DeFi yields less attractive compared to traditional finance, while broader crypto deleveraging drained capital from the ecosystem.

• Systemic contagion: The collapse of Terra/Luna, followed by the unraveling of 3AC, Celsius, and FTX, triggered a cascade of defaults that revealed just how deeply interconnected crypto credit markets had become.

• Regulatory uncertainty: Heightened global scrutiny introduced significant ambiguity around the legal status and compliance obligations of DeFi lending protocols, especially those interfacing with real-world assets.

• Underdeveloped risk frameworks: First-generation credit models often relied on reputation and social capital, rather than rigorous underwriting, leaving protocols exposed when the market turned.

TrueFi was not immune. Borrower defaults and liquidity pressures tested the protocol's recovery mechanisms, legal architecture, and governance processes. It was a period that forced difficult but necessary conversations around risk concentration, portfolio diversification, and the very foundations of on-chain credit infrastructure.

Yet these moments of stress were also moments of clarity. The crucible of 2022–2023 revealed:

• The importance of transparent, sound underwriting frameworks, throughout the cycle

• The need for diversified borrower sets spanning sectors, geographies, and use cases

• The value of enforceable legal agreements alongside on-chain execution

• The limits of token-based or socially-driven credit scoring

• The resilience of well-structured lending pools with built-in risk controls

Critically, the cycle proved that while some DeFi lending models failed, the core promise of on-chain credit endured. Protocols that applied sound underwriting, maintained governance discipline, treasury management, and built for resilience—not just returns—survived.

For TrueFi, these hard-won lessons didn't diminish our ambition, they refined it. The next generation of DeFi credit won't be built on bull-market exuberance, but on the tempered, tested insights of a full market cycle.

The Evolution

Today, TrueFi is undergoing a thoughtful transformation.

We're evolving from a lending protocol into a modular credit infrastructure layer—one designed to support permissionless capital formation with:

• Transparent, composable underwriting tools for diverse lending strategies

• A curated borrower whitelist with verifiable on-chain credit histories

• Smart contract rails for uncollateralized and real-world lending

• Governance frameworks that enable decentralized risk oversight without falling into the traps of discretionary asset management

A critical component of this evolution is the incubation of Elara Finance—a next-generation yield-bearing stablecoin protocol soon to launch. Elara addresses a fundamental limitation of traditional stablecoins: their inability to generate returns on underlying collateral. By sustainably distributing yield while maintaining a stable peg, Elara offers a compelling alternative for institutions and individuals holding stablecoins for payments, remittances, or treasury management.

The protocol intelligently deploys deposits into blue-chip, low-risk yield strategies, distributing returns to both holders and stakers, with yield amplification for those who commit capital for longer periods. With initial launch details to be released in the coming weeks, Elara aims to establish itself as a leading stable asset in the growing $250 billion stablecoin market.

This symbiotic relationship between TrueFi and Elara represents our holistic vision for on-chain credit infrastructure—where lending rails and yield-bearing stablecoins create a more efficient capital stack for the entire ecosystem.

This evolution is not a tactical pivot—it's a foundational realignment that directly addresses the vulnerabilities exposed during the market downturn while building on the elements that proved resilient. We believe DeFi will scale not by mimicking hedge funds with tokens, but by building public infrastructure: the credit rails, standards, and tooling to support the next generation of decentralized finance.

What Comes Next

Over the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out a new wave of content focused on this next chapter. Topics will include:

• How protocol-to-protocol lending unlocks a new capital stack for crypto

• What survived the 2022 collapse—and why it matters

• The blueprint for a decentralized underwriting system

• What DeFi vaults can learn from money market funds to attract institutional capital

• The role of stablecoins, privacy, and modular governance in the future of on-chain credit

This content strategy builds on TrueFi's recent momentum. In the past quarter alone, we've seen the successful deployment of our updated protocol architecture, onboarded new institutional borrowers, and maintained 100% repayment rates across active loans—demonstrating that our refined approach to credit infrastructure is gaining traction even in challenging market conditions.

Building With You

Whether you're an LP seeking sustainable yield, a borrower in need of efficient capital, a DAO exploring treasury options, or simply curious about where DeFi credit goes next—we're building with you in mind.

TrueFi's journey reflects the broader evolution of DeFi: from experimentation to resilience, from standalone protocols to shared infrastructure. We believe the future of finance is being built on-chain—and that credit is its cornerstone.

Thanks for being part of the journey. The best is yet to come.

TrueFi is excited to announce its successful deployment on Arbitrum, the leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution. The launch will focus on Lines of Credit to provide capital-efficient credit-managed lending to market-neutral strategies. Cicada Partners will serve as a Credit Risk Manager to the DAO, responsible for underwriting, structuring and pricing the lending transactions.

The TrueFi and Cicada Partnership aims to bring a sophisticated, risk-managed credit origination platform to Arbitrum. Supported by a risk management team with a strong track record and credit origination expertise, this offering will provide uncorrelated, liquid and stable real yield opportunities for participants in Arbitrum’s leading DeFi ecosystem.

To support TrueFi’s commitment, the Arbitrum Foundation will provide a grant to facilitate the launch and future growth. The grant, distributed in ARB tokens, will be allocated to pool lenders in its entirety to bootstrap and scale the new lending pools. The lenders will receive this incentive in addition to the interest paid by the borrowers. More details on the incentive program and the first pool launch will be announced shortly.  

Our first two pools will be going live with Alphanonce and Gravity, two leading market makers with more pools to follow.

Quote from Offchain Labs:

“We are excited to see TrueFi and Cicada Partners' deployment on Arbitrum. Their combined expertise in onchain lending and credit risk management will provide Arbitrum users with access to stable, risk-managed yields, representing a significant milestone in the growth of our DeFi ecosystem." 

- Luke Xiao, Senior Partnerships Manager, Offchain Labs

Quote from TrueFi

"Market-neutral trading firms have historically been the largest borrowers in onchain credit. While the events of 2022 disrupted this sector's growth, TrueFi is confident that partnering with Cicada will help us regain our leadership position. Launching Lines of Credit on Arbitrum is the first step in what we expect to be a long and fruitful partnership with both Cicada and Arbitrum."

 - Ryan Rodenbaugh, CEO and Co-Founder, Wallfacer Labs 

 Quote from Cicada

"Lending to crypto trading firms with demonstrated track records across all market environments is an attractive alpha opportunity stemming from a misunderstanding of the principles of credit risk and what other lenders got wrong in the bull market of ‘21/’22. Consequently, we’re excited to support TrueFi in managing credit risk on behalf of LPs and fill a clear gap in the market.”

 - Sefton Kincaid, CEO and Co-Founder, Cicada Partners

About TrueFi

Since 2020, TrueFi has originated >$1.7bn across 150+ loans with a default rate <1% (source: rwa.xyz).  TrueFi's Line of Credit product helps borrowers and lenders connect in a permissionless, composable manner, driving broader borrower adoption. TrueFi’s short- and medium-term roadmap also includes expanding its existing credit market primitives with (1) index vaults, which will allow yield aggregation across any EVM compatible yield products, (2) Trinity, which aims to facilitate capital efficiency for on-chain RWA. 

About Cicada Partners

Cicada is an on-chain credit risk management company that facilitates the growth of institutional lending on public blockchains by managing credit risk for non-custodial lenders. The team has extensive crypto-native lending expertise, having underwritten >$850m in loans on Maple and Atlendis since ’21 to an industry-leading 1.2% default rate.

About The Arbitrum Foundation

The Arbitrum Foundation, founded in March 2023, supports and grows the Arbitrum network and its community with secure scaling solutions for Ethereum. Arbitrum One—a leading Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution initially developed by Offchain Labs—offers ultra-fast, low-cost transactions with security derived from Ethereum through Optimistic Rollup technology. Launched in August 2021, the Arbitrum One mainnet beta is EVM-compatible to the bytecode level and has 54%+ TVL in the L2 segment. 2000+ DeFi and NFT projects are live in the ecosystem to date. In August 2022, Arbitrum One upgraded to Nitro tech stack, enabling fraud proofs over the core engine of Geth compiled to WASM.

Contact

Arbitrum Contact Information: arbitrumpr@mgroupsc.com

Wallfacer Labs Contact Information: gm@wallfacer.io or https://t.me/ryanrodenbaugh

Cicada Partners Contact Information: team@cicada.partners

For further information, please visit

TrueFi: Website | X/Twitter | GitHub

Cicada Partners: Website | X/Twitter | LinkedIn

Subscribe now

TrueFi’s top 5 moments for October 2022:

• New TrueFi portfolios: End Capital now live, New Silver newly approved.

• TrueFi confidently navigates first default response. Coverage: WSJ, Bloomberg.

• Successful repayment of $96m Wintermute loan. Coverage: CoinDesk, The Block.

• TrueFi partners w/ Circle’s Verite platform for decentralized KYC.

• Governance changes under discussion, on token voting & proposal workflows.

🥳 Bonus: our NFT drop now a Galxe case study + earn $50 of USDC for product feedback

Subscribe now

Read on for all the TrueFi news across governance, recent media, events and more below:

💼 New TrueFi Portfolios: End Capital & New Silver

Lend with End Capital for gig work financing: Recently launched EndLabs portfolio on TrueFi leverages the gig economy with its GigPool product, which focuses on providing funding capital for fintech lenders servicing borrowers in the gig economy. Read the entire press release here. Jump to TrueFi to explore the portfolio.

Coming soon, additional real estate lending with New Silver: Non-bank lender New Silver has recently been approved as a TrueFi PM, to provide short-term mortgages using real estate as collateral for ‘fix & flip’ single-family investment properties in the US. To date, New Silver has originated more than $130 million of loans with more than $50 million of loans securitized on the blockchain, creating the largest known DeFi pool of securitized real world assets. Read more on New Silver here, or explore TrueFi’s other real estate opportunity, provided by USDC.homes, here

🏦 Responding to TrueFi’s First Ever Default

TrueFi is currently navigating its first default on TrueFi, a $3.4m loan to Korean DeFi crypto fund Blockwater. The loan was restructured and received almost $650k in repayments before Blockwater was unable to make a scheduled payment. As outline in TrueFi’s default response plan, 10% of staked TRU was slashed, the DAO is pursuing coverage from the SAFU, and TrueFi is working with legal counsel as part of collection efforts. 

TrueFi is committed to delivering the best possible outcome for lenders, and we know the world is watching: TrueFi’s first default was covered in WSJ, Bloomberg, twice in CoinDesk, Decrypt, and CoinTelegraph, among others. 

💰 TrueFi Collects $158m in Repayments, including on DeFi’s Biggest Loan

In October, TrueFi collected in excess of $150 million in repayments, now exceeding $40m in interest collected for lenders. Repayments came from the likes of Folkvang, Nibbio, and Alameda Research. The biggest repayment, of $92 million and interest, came from Wintermute, making it the single largest successful loan in DeFi to date.

The repayment made news at CoinDesk, The Block, Forbes India, CoinTelegraph, UnChained, and a number of others.

Since repayment, new loans are being offered to a number of existing borrowers and TrueFi maintains an active lending book. Review all current and past TrueFi loans here.

👁 Archblock & TrueFi partner with Circle to build decentralized identity standard

In a major development for the DeFi space, Archblock (formerly TrustToken) and TrueFi have partnered with Circle, MetaMask Institutional and Parallel Markets to build a new decentralized identity standard for permissioned DeFi opportunities. With the new Verite credential, DeFi users will be able to bring their identity info to a growing number of protocols accepting Verite KYC, without needing to expose their personal information to each protocol individually.

Read the official announcement from our partner Circle.

⚖️ Governance Updates: 

dYdX Borrower Pool Moves Another Step Forward: Establishing the Borrower Pool on TrueFi to enhance capital efficiency and ensure better utility of $DYDX token incentives is now one step closer to snapshot.

Reduce emissions to tfTUSD and tfBUSD pools: Approved, reducing emissions will compensate lenders currently in the pools, while increasing long term sustainability of the protocol.

stkTRU gated borrower detailed infomation: Under discussion, what sort of borrower information should be made available to lenders - publicly, or to confirmed stakers - following TrueFi’s first default?

(1) Requirements for Proposals & (2) Snapshot Voting Power Strategy: Two separate proposals, now under discussion, for changes to TrueFi’s governance workflow that would change (1) how proposals are made and marketed and (2) who may vote on Snapshots, respectively.

📅 Events: TrueFi @ DevCon in Bogota, Columbia

TrueFi Engineering had an Impact Booth at Devcon Bogota, the biggest Ethereum conference of the year.  We were there to promote our contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem: open source projects useDapp & Waffle that enable developers to build frontend for multi chain dapps easily & test their smart contracts quickly. The team hosted two separate workshops, teaching devs how to use the two open source projects, and onboarded around 70 developers through the workshops. 

📰 Media: 

Besides coverage from the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, and many others reported under the “Responding to TrueFi’s First Ever Default” & “TrueFi Collects $158m in Repayments” headings above, TrueFi also secured 

• YouTube: Head of Marketing, Michael Gasiorek speaks about assets and transparency at Chainlink’s SmartCon.

• Twitter Spaces: Ryan Rodenbaugh sits down with Exponential DeFi to discuss the future of on-chain lending.

• Twitter Spaces: Ryan Rodenbaugh discusses Crypto Institutional Adoption with MEXC. 

• Podcast: Watch talk how TrueFi is reshaping global lending on Mint Ventures Podcast.

• TrueFi’s Real World Asset Strategy featured on The Tie, a major institutional research and media group.

• Investors Guide to TrueFi Capital Markets featured on Blockworks.

• Catch all of the TrueFi Podcasts in one place, on Spotify!

TrueFi’s top 5 moments for September 2022:

• TrueFi’s next big update targets institutional adoption. Read the roadmap.

• TrueFi further decentralizes as TrustToken rebrands to Archblock, with institutional focus & experienced CEO

• With the TrueFi Foundation launched & approved, a proposal to assemble the DAO’s first core contributors and budget is live.

• TrueFi’s NFT drop is complete, with thousands of new friends on Twitter & Discord.

• TrueFi made a big splash at ETH Warsaw, team now in NY for major crypto events.

Read on for all the TrueFi news across governance, recent content, events and more below:

TrueFi in Q4: Better DeFi Legos & Institutional Improvements 

In spite of rocky credit markets, TrueFi has weathered the ‘22 crypto storm soundly, all while working towards bringing in new liquidity and improving our underlying infrastructure. In the final quarter of the year, we’re putting this momentum towards bringing TrueFi’s lending products closer to feature parity with offerings found in traditional finance.

With structured portfolios that can attract capital from a variety of risk profiles, new credit vaults that can be easily integrated by other protocols, and improved fee structures and utility for TRU, TrueFi is being designed to take new institutional inflows from traditional finance and DeFi alike. With time, we’re confident these changes will make TrueFi core infrastructure for global lending. 

Read into our Q4 Roadmap here, and listen to some of the key features described in September’s TrueFi Town Hall here.

TrustToken, Core TrueFi Contributor, Rebrands to Archblock with Focus on Institutional Adoption

TrustToken, which incubated the TUSD stablecoin & the TrueFi credit protocol, is doubling down on institutional adoption as part of a rebrand to Archblock, and elevating former Chief Product Officer Ryan Christensen to CEO. The team will continue making major contributions to TrueFi, with a focus on Total Value Outstanding, by becoming the bridge to institutional investors.

Read the full news on Blockworks or check out the official announcement here.

TrueFi Foundation Live, Core DAO Contributors in Discussion

In a major motion for TrueFi decentralization, TRU holders have approved the formal launch of the DAO-managed TrueFi Foundation, based in the British Virgin Islands, staffed by an elected board, and home to many of TrueFi’s legal agreements, intellectual property, and licenses.

The next great discussion is underway for TrueFi’s first batch of DAO core contributors, focused on the future business & engineering needs of the protocol. Review the proposal in the forum.

Truly Optimistic NFT Drop Complete

TrueFi’s community has absolutely exploded since our NFT drop. With more than 51,000 new followers on Twitter, +20,000 new contributors on Discord, and over 13,000 free mints of the NFT to date, we’re thrilled by the success of the campaign - and so glad to have so many of you joining us. Welcome to TrueFi, SuperTRUpers.

Coming next for NFT holders: ticket offers to ETH Warsaw in Poland & DevCon in Colombia, our first TrueFi Discord AMA (with TRU drops for participants!), and TrueFi swag - all in our exclusive #nft-vip Discord channel, for NFT holders only!

TrueFi Takeover in Poland at ETHWarsaw

TrueFi took EthWarsaw by storm, and it was a smashing success! We partnered with ETH Warsaw as the main sponsor for the city’s biggest ETH Conference and Hackathon, all which went down September 1st - 4th. We have an entire recap of the event here.

Upcoming Events:

⚖️ Prestel and Partner Family Conference: Oct 11-12

🇨🇴The team is headed to Bogota for Devcon, October 11-14 see you there!

🌊 TrueFi is an official BitGo #ActivateDevCon partner! Find us 10/25 in the Bay Area

🙋‍♂️ Meet the TrueFi team at Money2020 Oct 23-26

Governance Updates

Governance Update w dYdX: TrueFi is proposing a 4-month trial of lines of credit for up to 20 borrowers. The trial will operate with 1.26M $DYDX tokens from the dYdX Community Treasury as a subsidy to the real interest rate the borrowers pay.

Establishing the TrueFi Foundation: Creation of the TrueFi Foundation and transfer of assets and IP to the TrueFi DAO.

SushiSwap Liquidity Pool Refill: The TRU/ETH LP has been refilled on SushiSwap, fill up on those sweet sweet rewards.

• YouTube: Watch September’s TrueFi Town Hall here.

• Podcast: Rafael Cosman sits in on Hash Rate with Mark Jeffrey, discussing all things TrueFi. Watch the replay here.

• Podcast: Rafael Cosman sits in on Blockchain & Booze with Alon Goren

Spotify: Catch all of the TrueFi Podcasts in one place.

TrueFi’s top 5 moments for August 2022:

• TrueFi’s NFT drop is more than halfway through! Mint yours today.

• Meet the TrueFi team at ETH Warsaw in September.

• TrueFi’s CIO Bill Wolf gave an incredible performance on Blockworks’ Forward Guidance podcast. Listen on Spotify or watch on YouTube.

• TrueFi’s proposal to relaunch dYdX’s market maker lending program is heating up.

• New on the blog: meet all of TrueFi’s lending products

Read on for all the TrueFi news across governance, fresh content, events and more below:

Huge Growth in our TrueFi x Optimism NFT Campaign

We’re now over halfway through TrueFi’s Truly Optimistic NFT campaign, celebrating our launch on the protocol’s first Layer 2, Optimism - and TrueFi’s community has absolutely exploded since the launch. With more than 35,000 new followers on Twitter, +20,000 new contributors on Discord, and over 12,000 free mints of the NFT to date, we’re heading into the final stretch of the campaign - and we’re so happy to have you with us!

Learn about the campaign and our collaboration with Optimism, then head over to our friends at Project Galaxy to complete your eligibility and mint your free TrueFi x Optimism NFT today.

Join TrueFi in Poland at ETHWarsaw

TrueFi is taking over another city this summer: Warsaw, Poland! We’ve partnered with ETH Warsaw as the main sponsor for the city’s biggest ETH Conference and Hackathon, happening September 1st - 4th. It’s your best bet to meet most of the TrueFi team in one place before 2023.

TrueFi Governance: Recent & Active Motions

There is a lot going on in the TrueFi forum, here’s a quick summary of proposals to vote on:

Establishing the TrueFi Foundation - discussion around next steps towards TrueFi decentralization are taking place in the forum

Incentivize a tfUSDC/USDC liquidity pool - Divert a part of tfBUSD and tfTUSD Farm rewards to a low fee tfUSDC/USDC liquidity pool. 

Cauris Portfolio Manager - Incentives Request - An investment firm that provides private credit to financial technology companies in emerging markets is requesting incentives for their portfolio.

Reduce TRU farming rewards by 30% – TrueFi’s tfUSDC and tfTUSD pools have shrunk considerably in size as of lately. Reducing emissions can give the DAO a longer runway and bring TrueFi closer to sustainability. 

TrueFi Stories: Blockworks, Nasdaq and Gemini

This month’s top feature: TrueFi’s Bill Wolf (CIO) weaved his decades of Wall Street experience with a engrossing vision of how DeFi will encroach on traditional finance with Jack Farley on Blockworks’ Forward Guidance this month. It’s one of our favorite conversations about TrueFi to date, and not just because of Bill’s characteristic Southern accent.

• Podcast: Tapping Into Crypto invited Rafael Cosman (CEO) to discuss stablecoins, and announce our most recent product developments: tranching.

• Podcast: DAO Talks hosted Michael Gasiorek (Marketing) & Michael Bland (Legal) to talk about TrueFi’s path to decentralization and its innovative lending structures.

• Podcast: CoinJournal Podcast interviewer Dan Ashmore asked Rafael what uncollateralized lending is like in a now post-Terra world.

• News: Nasdaq published Rafael’s take on the UST collapse & the hunt for sustainable DeFi yields from real world, on-chain lending.

• Twitter Spaces: Gemini’s Brittany Elise hosted Rafael to discuss all things TrueFi.

• Twitter Spaces: Project Galaxy invited Michael Gasiorek & Matt Kielczewski (Community) to discuss the Truly Optimistic NFT Drop.

New from our blog, Meet TrueFi’s Lending Products, with an introduction to permissionless pools, single borrower pools, automated lines of credit, and portfolios.
 

Since launch, TrueFi’s token release schedule has been updated several times by TRU community votes to reflect updated opportunities. As a result, the actual circulating supply and distribution curve is now different than when it was originally proposed.

The information in the attached blog post aims to be comprehensive in explaining the differences between the projected and actual distribution, give context to each source of distribution, and provide intentions for how the distribution could change over time.

If you have questions or are seeking clarifications, please join our Discord.

Join the TrueFi Community:

• Start using TrueFi today at truefi.io

• Follow @TrustToken on Twitter for the latest news.

• Join live discussion on TrueFi & TRU on Discord.

• Participate in governance on the TrueFi Forum.

• Subscribe to the TrueFi newsletter for regular progress summaries.

Subscribe now

In this same time period, the protocol is on track to pass on $525,715 in returns to lenders and millions of TRU to platform participants and liquidity providers. At time of writing, TrueFi stands in the top 30 protocols by Total Value Locked and is in the top 10 for lending protocols, as tracked by DeFi Pulse.

TrueFi’s goal is to become the ultimate market-driven, automated credit rating and lending system. To that end, the proposed 2021 TrueFi Roadmap lays out a 4-phase plan for building a robust credit model, servicing on-chain lines of credit, and diversifying both the available assets and open pools. It also explores opportunities in protocol-to-protocol lending, tradable loan tokens, and more.

TrueFi’s next milestone, summarily called V2, goes live on approximately February 19th, 2021, pending audit. V2 will include three major protocol changes: an improved TRU staking model designed to improve TRU utilization and participation yield; an on-platform service for exiting the lending pool with the lowest possible slippage, called liquid exit; and the launch of full on-chain governance.

To read the full update, please go to our Medium page or Twitter to share the news.

Join the TrueFi Community:

• Start using TrueFi today at truefi.io

• Follow @TrustToken on Twitter for the latest news.

• Join live discussion on TrueFi & TRU on Discord.

• Participate in governance on the TrueFi Forum.

• Subscribe to the TrueFi newsletter for regular progress summaries.

Subscribe now

ICYMI: Last week we shared our proposed roadmap for the next 6 months of TrueFi.

For the full text, please see our Medium Post or “Watch” the file on Github and get notified whenever updates are made. If you would like to share on Twitter, you can RT our Tweet announcing the roadmap here.

Join the TrueFi Community:

• Start using TrueFi today at truefi.io

• Follow @TrustToken on Twitter for the latest news.

• Join live discussion on TrueFi & TRU on Discord.

• Participate in governance on the TrueFi Forum.

• Subscribe to the TrueFi newsletter for regular progress summaries.

For more updates, please join our Discord, Twitter, and Governance Forum

In today’s issue:

• Overview of loans repaid since last newsletter

• TrueFi v2 Specs (improved staking + governance)

• Ongoing business development efforts  (CREAM, SUSHI, CRV)

• Governance Proposals

• FTX Exchange Listing
  

Overview of Loan Activity:

2 loans have been successfully repaid since our last TrueFi newsletter in December. Alameda Research repaid their 3rd loan ($6.5M) and Invictus Capital repaid their first loan ($1M).

At https://app.truefi.io/loans you can use the “Select Status” dropdown in the top right to view the status all loans on the platform

TrueFi v2 Specs

TrueFi v2 is a series of upgrades to the original TrueFi specification. These upgrades improve and overhaul the TrueFi lending product, and focus on value accrual, decentralization, and automation. As the TrueFi roadmap is developed, upgrades will be made in phases synchronized with unlocked tokens entering circulation.

Finalized changes entailed in the TrueFi v2 spec will be presented to the community for review & snapshot signaling prior to implementation.

For an overview, please see: https://github.com/trusttoken/truefi-spec/blob/v2/truefi-v2.md

Business Development

CREAM

https://forum.cream.finance/t/proposal-add-truefi-lp-token-as-a-collateral-asset/408/3
We are working to increase the utility of TFI-LP tokens and ensure TrueFi users have optionality when deciding on how they want to unlock the value of their TFI-LP tokens. If you are also a CREAM token holder, please consider supporting the linked proposal above.

SushiSwap

$TRU was included in the launch of Sushiswap’s Onsen incentive program

SushiSwap TRU/ETH liquidity providers can now stake their SLP tokens and receive $SUSHI rewards. We are in contact with the SushiSwap team and will look to offer $TRU incentives for liquidity providers on top of the trading fees and $SUSHI rewards they are already receiving.

Curve

We are also exploring the possibility of a TFI-LP metapool on Curve.fi. An incentivized pool on Curve would increase the liquidity of TFI-LP tokens significantly as liquidity providers to this new pool would be earning CRV rewards, trading fees, and the underlying interest from holding TFI-LP tokens. Additional $TRU rewards could be allocated to this pool as well.

Dodo

Huge shoutout to community member, spidey, who got TRU added to $DODO’s default list 

Governance

Since the last issue of the TrueFi newsletter, various team members and borrowers have put forth governance proposals in the TrueFi discourse forums.

Three of these proposed changes are now official snapshot proposals. Please review them here and vote.

Expedited TIP - TRU Staking

Changing Loan Origination Fee

Lowering Minimum Loan Amount

Note that Snapshot enables off-chain voting so this will NOT incur any additional gas costs. You just have to sign a meta-transaction.

FTX Exchange Listing

On January 14, 2020, we were very pleased to see that FTX decided to list TRU markets including:

1. TRU/USD spot

2. TRU/USDT spot

3. TRU-PERP

4. TRU quarterly futures (TRU-0326)

FTX’s sister companyAlameda is an active borrower from the TrueFi protocol and we look forward to continued collaboration with their teams. 

For more updates, please join our Discord, Twitter, and Governance Forum

Happy Holidays, TrueFi Community!

Today we are releasing the first issue of our TrueFi Newsletter, another step in creating better community engagement and highlighting important updates for TRU holders.

This newsletter will be mostly focused on governance and product changes. In today’s issue we will cover 3 main areas of interest:

• Accomplishments: What the team & community has gotten done

• Changes: Product, governance, token, or other changes that may affect TrueFi users and TRU holders

• Proposals: Ongoing discussions to onboard new borrowers or change the product that will benefit from your input - possibly the most important part of this roundup!

Recap: The First 30 Days of TrueFi

Since launching a bit over 30 days ago, we’ve been able to make a bunch of improvements to V1 of TrueFi. Rafael goes into more detail on Discord, but some highlights include: 

In Case You Missed It: 

• $5mm loan to Alameda Research was fully repaid - the first ever on TrueFi

• 4 active loans totaling $12mm made to borrowers including Grapefruit Trading, Alameda Research, and Invictus Capital

• Built on-chain governance system (based on Compound’s model), this is viewable in Github awaiting further audits

• TrustToken has now burned over 3,000,000 TRU, in keeping with its commitment to a fair marketplace for the token.

• Fixing lots of front end bugs (incorrect APY calculations, etc.)

• Finished smart contract upgrade that will solve TFI-LP slippage issues for token holders that wish to leave the lending pool early

• Reductions of TRU farming incentives, reducing the daily outgoing supply dramatically

Behind the Scenes:

• Spec'd, built, and had audited a smart contract upgrade will allow users to sell their TFI-LP tokens back to the pool at a reasonable price (the pool still makes a little extra $ every time someone does this)

• Made significant progress on the plan to decentralize from an entity side (i.e. how to not have the company play any privileged role in the protocol, will be moving to something like a foundation)

• Hired and on-boarded another engineer!

Roadmap for Next 60 Days: 

Going forward, our roadmap will be focused around four broad pillars that we think will lead to TrueFi's ultimate goal of being the most valuable on-chain lending protocol:

1. Decentralize TrueFi and enact governance

2. Create a valuable ecosystem around TRU and TrueFI 

3. Strengthen the TrueFi risk management and credit assignment process 

4. Create the most user-friendly experience in DeFi

Over the next 60 days, this means: 

1. Decentralize TrueFi and enact governance

   1. All protocol upgrades and changes require the consent of TRU holders and the TrustToken team does not have the ability to make upgrades without this consent 

   2. Governance contract is the owner of the smart contracts and future updates require TRU holder votes (TrustToken Inc. has no special powers whatsoever)

   3. Actions within TrueFi (CRV claims, close out a loan, etc.) happen without human intervention

2. Create a valuable ecosystem around TRU and TrueFI 

   1. Drive additional value to the TRU token 

   2. Get support from more partners (exchanges, wallets, other Dapps)

   3. Ability to lock TRU for increase voting power (e.g., something like veCRV)

   4. Overall better job at communicating publicly

3. Strengthen the TrueFi risk management and credit assignment process 

   1. Hire (or consult with) a credit risk expert to help outline an improved risk framework

   2. Finish scoping out process to offer open-term loans 

   3. Scoping out improved staker diligence process which would not require borrowers to share their identity upfront  

4. Create the most user-friendly experience in DeFi

   1. Offer in-depth documentation on the protocol (e.g., Compound’s documentation). Every protocol related questions should be documented and referenceable in the documentation. 

   2. Governance UI, locking TRU interface, etc. are beautiful and easy to use and understand (lots of tooltips, etc.)

   3. Connect with companies that already have beautiful UI’s (Zapper, Instadapp, Fireblock, Curv) to open up the pool of users

Ongoing Governance Proposals

There are currently two proposals in the TrueFi Discourse forums that have been well received by the community and will soon be turned into our first two Snapshot proposals. You can check them out in detail via the links below.

1. [Proposal] - Value Accrual To $TRU

2. [Proposal] - Tweak Loan Origination Fee Model

Beyond these changes to TRU staking and the new loan origination fee model, we will also be making upgrades to the TrueFi smart contracts based on additional audits that we received.

Community Announcements

Thank you to all our community members that continue to speak up and report bugs in the TrueFi Discord. Your unfiltered comments and feedback will only make TrueFi better for all participants please continue to be vocal.

Launch of TrueFi Merch + January Promo 

The TrustToken Merch Store powered by Origin Protocol is now live! If you buy now and send a selfie of yourself wearing your TrueFi Swag, you’ll be eligible to receive 250 TRU from the TrustToken team! Explore the store at merch.trusttoken.com

Media & Interviews

“If DeFi has disrupted and lowered the barriers towards securing loans, TrueFi by TrustToken has utterly broken down the barriers. TrustToken’s TrueFi is a revolutionary decentralized protocol that allows for people to borrow tokens without the need of securing any collaterals.” - TrueFi as reported on by TechBoullion, read the full story here.

Additional coverage by Fintech Inshorts, The Cryptonomist, Finextra, and Cryptomode.

In China, TrueFi is enjoying substantial coverage by Chain News, a top Chinese-language crypto outlet.

Podcasts & AMAs

• Back2Backwards Podcast with Mr. Backwards with Rafael Cosman, TrustToken CEO, discussing all things TrueFi

• AMA with Hillrise Capital, a respected trading and investment group

• AMA with Gate.io, one of TRU’s first exchange partners

• Written AMA with Crypto Birb, a top European technical trader

• Written AMA with RealSatoshi, a Chinese community group