Solana's Jupiter Lend has launched its first institutional lending market through a partnership with Bitwise Asset Management, marking a significant milestone for onchain lending infrastructure. According to reports from Jupiter, the partnership was announced on May 13 via X, with the new Ethena USDe market structured as an isolated pool separate from existing Jupiter Lend liquidity. Bitwise Asset Management serves as the curator, applying its onchain asset management and risk oversight capabilities to the market's parameters. As reported by Jupiter, this week's institutional market is the first time an external asset manager has curated a dedicated pool on the platform, opening a template for future manager-led markets. The lending market is built around USDe, the synthetic dollar asset developed by Ethena, combining several separate components into one integrated system.
Jupiter Lend reached $500 million in total value locked within its first 24 hours of public launch in August 2025, representing one of the fastest launches in onchain lending history. As reported by Jupiter, the platform launched with over 40 vaults, loan-to-value ratios up to 95%, and liquidation penalties as low as 0.1%. The USDe lending pool is designed for billions in capacity and is powered by Fluid, the decentralised finance infrastructure layer that underpins the platform. According to Jupiter, the platform has expanded steadily since its private beta, adding assets, composability features, and flash-loan-powered leverage loops. Recent data shows the Kamino pool witnessed explosive growth after reaching 100% utilization within 24 hours, hitting its $200 million USDG borrow cap and crossing $400 million in overall size. Meanwhile, Jupiter Lend's pool stood at around 78% utilization, with $156 million borrowed, bringing the combined market to approximately $397 million in USDe collateral.
According to Jonathan Man, Head of DeFi Strategies at Bitwise, the partnership represents a turning point for onchain lending, with the infrastructure offering deep liquidity and thoughtful risk-mitigating features. As reported by Jupiter, Jonathan Man stated that "Jupiter and Fluid have built unique infrastructure for efficient lending markets, offering deep liquidity and thoughtful risk-mitigating features, making it a compelling foundation for an isolated USDe market on Solana." Kash Dhanda, COO of Jupiter, emphasized the importance of institutional credibility, noting that "Now more than ever, its imperative that we take DeFi risk seriously." Guy Young, Founder & CEO of Ethena, described USDe as "an institutional grade savings product, built for scale," combining Jupiter Lend's advanced lending infrastructure with Bitwise's asset management expertise. The product structure revolves around a leveraged yield loop where users deposit USDe, borrow USDG at around 2%, swap back to USDe, redeposit, and repeat the process, offering up to 12.5x leverage and aiming for around 20% net APY while incorporating built-in liquidation protections.
The launch comes as DeFi TVL has grown 238% since January 2023, reaching $156 billion globally, with institutional capital increasingly flowing onchain through structured products like USDe-backed yield strategies. According to Dune Analytics, this week's institutional market represents a new institutional yield template now live on Solana after Ethena-backed lending markets rapidly absorbed nearly $400 million in collateral. USDG supply on Solana has surged to around $1.2 billion*, while USDe supply on Solana increased from around $1.5 million on May 10 to $350 million by May 15—a 230x surge in 5 days, mainly absorbed by these new markets. Trading volumes affirm the loop activity, with the newly made USDG-USDe pair listing $8 million in volume solely on May 13, while associated pairs with USDC also witnessed a surge. In a separate development, Kraken Institutional and Ethena Labs revealed that Kraken Custody has been chosen to manage the collateral for USDe, with the partnership approved by the Ethena Risk Committee after conducting extensive evaluation.
