Pendle Emerges as RWA Yield Core: Inflows of Funds and Yield from Apollo, Paxos, Ethena, Strategy, and More

April 29 — DeFi researcher Stacy Muur (@stacy_muur) notes that as the stablecoin market cap tops $310 billion and real-world assets (RWAs) ramp up on-chain adoption, Pendle is emerging as core infrastructure for the on-chain fixed-income market. Per the report, a flood of RWA yields is flowing into Pendle—including returns from traditional finance assets like U.S. Treasuries, private credit, corporate bonds, and dividends from Nasdaq-listed firms. Through its PT/YT yield-splitting mechanism, Pendle converts floating yields into fixed-rate products, meeting institutional demand for predictable returns. Several top TradFi and DeFi projects have already integrated with Pendle: - An Apollo Global Management credit fund with over $840 billion in AUM has integrated via the Ember protocol; - Strategy’s STRC dividend income has been tokenized by Saturn and Apyx and listed on Pendle; - Paxos’ U.S. Treasury-backed stablecoin USDG hit over $120 million in TVL within two months; - Ethena has brought over $4.7 billion in TVL to Pendle, making it one of the platform’s largest revenue sources. The report also notes that U.S. regulatory frameworks like the “GENIUS Act” and “CLARITY Act” could restrict centralized platforms from directly paying interest to stablecoin holders. But since Pendle operates as an on-chain market mechanism (not an interest payer), it may become the primary on-chain venue for future U.S. dollar stablecoin yield trading. Data shows Pendle has cumulatively settled over $69.8 billion in yields to date.