Jupiter, an onchain finance platform with more than $3 trillion in lifetime trading volume, has opened its lending product to outside curators, naming Bitwise Asset Management as the first institutional manager to run a market.

Jupiter Lend USDe Market

The new market on Jupiter Lend is dedicated to Ethena's USDe (usde) and sits isolated from the platform's existing liquidity layer. It runs on infrastructure from Fluid, the lending protocol behind Jupiter Lend.

Jupiter announced the launch from Singapore on Wednesday.

Bitwise will handle curation duties, which include setting risk parameters and overseeing collateral rules for institutional capital flowing into the market.

Company executives framed the launch as the first time a traditional asset manager has curated a market on Jupiter Lend. The structure assigns each participant a distinct role, with Jupiter providing the venue, Bitwise managing risk, Ethena supplying the asset, and Fluid running the technical layer.

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Bitwise DeFi Outlook

Jonathan Man, head of DeFi strategies at Bitwise, said the firm sees Jupiter and Fluid's design as suitable for institutional money.

"Their design offers deep liquidity and thoughtful risk-mitigating features, making it a compelling foundation for an isolated USDe market on Solana (sol)," he said.

Kash Dhanda, chief operating officer at Jupiter, said the partnership is meant to push onchain lending past its current niche. Ethena founder Guy Young described USDe as a savings product built for scale, while Fluid co-founder Samyak Jain said the protocol offers risk tools unavailable elsewhere.

DeFi has been steadily drawing more institutional attention this year. Total value locked across DeFi protocols has climbed from $46 billion in January 2023 to roughly $156 billion as of early May, according to data from The Block cited by Bitwise.

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