PENDLE

Pendle

DeFi

The leading DeFi yield-trading market, now with near-zero emissions and buybacks, but TVL far below its 2025 peak.

Strong token, thin TVL v1.1 · as of 2026-10-21 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Pendle lets users split yield-bearing tokens into a fixed-rate part and a variable-yield part and trade both. In 2026 it rebuilt its token: sPENDLE replaced vePENDLE, emissions fell ~92% and revenue buybacks now run about ten times new supply. The business has shrunk, though: TVL is ~$1.25B against a ~$13.4B peak in 2025, and the token is −30% over a year and −71% from its 2024 ATH. The bet is that RWA and institutional markets refill the protocol before the good tokenomics stop mattering.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$2.18
+1.8% 24h · −14% 30d · CoinGecko 21 Oct
Market cap
$379.7M
rank #128 · FDV $614.9M, no max supply
24h volume
$57.0M
15.0% of market cap
From ATH
−71%
ATH $7.50, Apr 2024
2026 YTD
+16%
$1.88 → $2.18
TVL
~$1.25B
early Oct 2026 · DefiLlama; peak ~$13.4B in 2025

The last 12 months

$1$2$3$4Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec2025-10-27: $3.4513$3.45 peak2026-01-20: $2.3256$2.332026-04-07: $1.0182$1.02 low2026-10-21: $2.1827$2.18112-month high at $3.452sPENDLE replaces vePENDLE3One-day drop to $1.174Year low at $1.025100M PENDLE staked6H2 roadmap: RWA push7Float at all-time low8Emissions −92% this year9Institutional pilot10Curator Module
MarketTokenomicsGovernanceUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 22 Oct 2025 to 21 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    27 Oct 25 12-month high at $3.45. PENDLE peaks at $3.45, then slides for five months as DeFi yields and TVL fall.
  2. 2
    20 Jan 26 sPENDLE replaces vePENDLE. Liquid staking with a 14-day unstake replaces multi-year locks; revenue buys PENDLE for stakers.
  3. 3
    09 Feb 26 One-day drop to $1.17. Price falls ~35% in a day (from $1.79) during a broad sell-off and stays near $1.20 for two months.
  4. 4
    07 Apr 26 Year low at $1.02. Bottom of the drawdown, −70% from the October peak; a rally to $2.15 follows by mid-May.
  5. 5
    04 Jul 26 100M PENDLE staked. About 36% of supply in sPENDLE; emissions down 71% under the algorithmic model.
  6. 6
    23 Jul 26 H2 roadmap: RWA push. Curator tooling, Morpho vaults, tokenized ETFs and bonds with New York issuers, Boros arbitrage focus.
  7. 7
    04 Aug 26 Float at all-time low. Pendle says buybacks run ~5x new supply and circulating PENDLE hits a record low.
  8. 8
    18 Sep 26 Emissions −92% this year. Inflation ~0.2% a year vs buybacks ~2%; price reaches $2.71 on 21 Sep.
  9. 9
    ~Nov Institutional pilot. Permissioned markets pilot for institutions, reported for about early November.
  10. 10
    Q4 26 Curator Module. Lets outside firms create and manage their own Pendle markets.

How a fixed-yield trade flows through Pendle

User
Brings a yield asset

For example USDe, staked ETH or a tokenized bond.

SY wrapper
Standardises it

Any yield source becomes one token format Pendle can handle.

Split
PT + YT minted

PT = principal at maturity; YT = all yield until then.

Pendle AMM
User buys PT at a discount

The discount is the fixed rate; YT buyers take the variable side. A swap fee is paid.

Protocol
Collects fees

Swap fees plus a cut of the yield earned by YT holders.

Maturity
PT redeems 1:1

User receives the full underlying, locking in the fixed yield.

Where PENDLE comes in: it is bypassed in the trade itself, as PT and YT are bought with the underlying asset. Up to 80% of the fees buy PENDLE on the market for sPENDLE stakers, and a small, falling amount of new PENDLE is minted as liquidity incentives.

Usage and adoption

PENDLE per year, run-rate mid-Sep 2026
Bought back from revenue
~3.5M
Emissions before AIM (Jan 2026)
~4.3M
Emitted now
~0.35M

Pendle says buybacks run at ~2% of supply a year against ~0.2% inflation (Coinalertnews, 18 Sep), applied here to ~174M circulating. Cumulative buybacks of ~2.68M PENDLE from 20 Jan to late Sep match that pace. The January run-rate is derived from the −92% cut, so treat it as approximate.

  • strong signal
    Fees 2025
    $44.6M

    DefiLlama full-year. Swap fees plus a cut of YT yield: real paid usage.

  • medium signal
    Revenue Q2 2026
    ~$3.3M

    Single source, quarter-to-date figure; well below 2025 run-rate. Most of it now funds buybacks.

  • medium signal
    TVL
    ~$1.25B

    Early Oct 2026, DefiLlama snapshots range $1.06B to $1.25B. 2025 average ~$5.7B, peak ~$13.4B.

  • weak signal
    Boros volume
    ~$14B cumulative

    Funding-rate trading since Aug 2025; another source says $1.4B. Annualised revenue only ~$0.7M.

The token side is now very healthy: buybacks far exceed new supply. The business side is the question, because fees follow TVL, and TVL is down roughly 90% from the 2025 peak as the points and leveraged-yield trade cooled.

Project

What it is
A DeFi protocol (live since 2021) that splits yield-bearing tokens such as staked ETH or Ethena's USDe into a Principal Token (fixed yield to maturity) and a Yield Token (all variable yield), traded on its own AMM. Boros, launched in 2025, adds trading of perpetual funding rates.
Team
Founded in Singapore by TN Lee and Vu Nguyen; backed early by Binance Labs (now YZi Labs). Small core team that has shipped steadily through two market cycles.
Technology
A standard wrapper (SY) for any yield source, a time-decaying AMM for PT/YT, deployments on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Sonic, HyperEVM, Monad and more. PTs are widely used as collateral on lending markets such as Morpho and Aave.
Traction
2025 averaged ~$5.7B TVL with ~$44.6M in fees. TVL is now ~$1.25B and Q2 2026 revenue was ~$3.3M, far below the ~$12.9M of Q1 2025. Boros has ~$14B cumulative volume (one source) but only ~$0.7M annualised revenue.
Competitors
Spectra and Exponent (Solana) in yield tokenization; fixed-rate lenders and lending markets with fixed terms; perp DEXs and centralised venues for funding-rate exposure.
Key risks
Pendle's volume tracks the hunger for leveraged yield and points farming (Ethena, restaking), which has faded; smart-contract risk in many integrated assets; revenue is concentrated in a few large underlying assets.
Roadmap
H2 2026 plan (23 Jul): curator tooling so outside firms can list markets, Morpho-linked yield vaults, tokenized ETFs and bonds with New York RWA issuers. A permissioned institutional markets pilot is reported for ~Nov 2026 and a Curator Module for Q4 2026.

Token performance

1-year return (22 Oct 2025 → 21 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
PENDLE
-30%
BTC
-22%
ETH
-35%

PENDLE sits between BTC and ETH over 12 months. Over 3 years it is up roughly +190% (from ~$0.75 in Oct 2023, approximate), slightly ahead of BTC (~+179%) and well ahead of ETH (~+53%); 3-year figures are manual because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$1.02 low (7 Apr) to $2.83 high (17 Jan), daily closes; now $2.18, +16% YTD
12-month drawdown
−70%, from $3.45 (27 Oct 2025) to $1.02 (7 Apr 2026); +114% since that low
Liquidity
$57M traded in 24h, 15% of market cap; rank #128; FDV $615M vs $380M market cap
Relative strength
−30% over 12 months vs BTC −22% and ETH −35%; the April to September recovery outran both, but October gave back ~19% from the 21 Sep close of $2.71
ATH check ATH check passed. The $7.50 high (11 Apr 2024) came almost three years after the 2021 launch, during the restaking and points boom, and is also the current-cycle high, so it is used as the reference.

Tokenomics

Supply
~281.5M PENDLE total, ~173.9M counted as circulating by CoinGecko. No hard cap; the old schedule ended in a ~2% a year tail inflation from April 2026.
Emissions
The Algorithmic Incentive Model (Jan 2026) sends rewards by TVL and fees instead of votes. Emissions were −71% by early July and −92% by mid-September; annual inflation is now ~0.2% (Pendle figures via news).
Unlocks
The 2021 team and investor allocations finished vesting years ago; no large scheduled unlock is reported. New supply now comes almost entirely from incentives.
Utility
Stake as sPENDLE (14-day unstake, or instant with a 5% fee) to receive buybacks and vote on governance. PENDLE is not needed to trade PT or YT.
Concentration
Over 100M PENDLE (~36% of supply) staked by July; Pendle says ~92% of sPENDLE addresses never unstaked. Circulating supply hit an all-time low in August.
Sinks
Up to 80% of protocol revenue buys PENDLE on the market for stakers: ~2.68M PENDLE bought by late September, a pace of ~2% of supply a year versus ~0.2% minted.

Bull case

RWA and institutional markets (permissioned pilot, curator module, tokenized ETFs and bonds) bring TVL back above $3B, revenue climbs and buybacks at ~10x emissions shrink float further. Price reclaims the $2.71 September high and then the $3.45 October 2025 peak.

Bear case

TVL keeps drifting below $1B as DeFi yields compress, so buybacks shrink with revenue and the low-emission story stops mattering. Price loses the $2.00 area of the past month and heads back toward the $1.02 April low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • Pendle TVL and monthly fees on DefiLlama
  • Buyback volume vs emissions (Pendle's weekly reports)
  • Launch of the permissioned pilot and Curator Module
  • $2.00 support and the $2.71 September high

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

PENDLE against EUR · USD

24h $263.3k · ±2% depth $191.8k

OKXlisted

PENDLE against EUR · USDT · USDC

24h $987.3k · ±2% depth $198.1k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinancePENDLE/USDT$3.33M$729.8k
OKXPENDLE/USDT$943.4k$198.1k
MEXCPENDLE/USDT$653.1k$561.3k
CoinbasePENDLE/USD$375.6k$362.6k
UpbitPENDLE/KRW$345.2k$80.9k

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
CamelotPENDLE/WETH · Arbitrum$63.2k$90.0k
Uniswap V3CLPENDLE/WETH · Arbitrum One$183.5k$44.4k
Uniswap V3CLPENDLE/USDT · Arbitrum One$251.4k$24.0k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all PENDLE volume: 2.2%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

Where to follow

Official
People on X
Code and governance
Data
Media