Pendle (PENDLE)

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Pendle is a DeFi protocol that turns future yield into something you can trade. It takes a yield-bearing asset — say, a staked-ETH token that earns interest — and splits it into two parts: a principal token (the underlying value) and a yield token (the future income stream). This lets users do things normally reserved for traditional finance: lock in a fixed rate, speculate on whether yields will rise or fall, or hedge their exposure.

For people who want predictability, Pendle offers fixed yields; for traders, it offers a way to bet on interest rates moving. It became especially popular during the 'points' and airdrop-farming era, when users wanted to maximize or lock in yields from new protocols. The PENDLE token is used for governance and can be locked to direct rewards and earn a share of protocol fees, similar to the ve-token model.

Pendle is widely seen as the leading on-chain market for fixed income and yield trading, a category that barely existed in DeFi before it. For newcomers, think of it as a marketplace where the interest an asset will earn can itself be bought and sold.