Pendle has announced an upgrade to its native token, introducing sPENDLE as a new framework for liquidity and revenue distribution. The protocol said the change is designed to deepen liquidity, broaden revenue sources, and reinforce Pendle’s position in onchain yield and rates markets. One key date is already set: vePENDLE locks will pause on January 29. Existing vePENDLE holders at that point will receive a multiplier on their virtual sPENDLE balance based on remaining lock duration, with the boost reaching as high as 4x.
Under the updated design, protocol revenue will be used for buybacks and distributed to active sPENDLE holders. Pendle also said sPENDLE is intended to function as a composable and fungible token that can integrate with external dApps, removing the previous trade-off between participation and liquidity across different time horizons. Holders will also have the option of instant redemption at a 5% fee. The old manual voting structure is set to be replaced by an algorithmic emissions model aimed at improving allocation efficiency.
2025 metrics show Pendle’s scale in yield trading
The announcement paired the token upgrade with a set of 2025 performance indicators. Pendle said its average total value locked placed the protocol alongside major DeFi names such as Uniswap, Aave, and Hyperliquid in terms of liquidity engagement. It also reported holder revenue of about $34.9 million from total fees accrued. Monthly notional trading volume remained elevated, with daily activity frequently reaching nine figures. Some figures in the source release were not fully displayed, but the message was clear: Pendle is presenting itself as a major venue for tokenized yield and funding-rate trading.
TN Lee, Pendle’s co-founder and CEO, described the move as a structural improvement tied to the scaling of both Pendle and Boros. He said the protocol’s long-standing objective has been to bring the efficiency and scale of traditional fixed-income markets into DeFi, and that the new token architecture is meant to make Pendle more robust, sustainable, and ready for institutional use.
Boros emerges as a major catalyst behind the redesign
Pendle also framed Boros as a central reason for the upgraded token architecture. The platform described Boros as the first onchain venue to tokenize perpetual funding rates, turning what had been an untradable yield stream into a tradable instrument. According to the release, 4 months after launch, Boros had reached roughly $91 million in scale and $6.8 million in deposits by the end of 2025. It also generated about $301,000 in fees.
Pendle said perpetual markets represent about $63 billion in open interest, leaving substantial room for Boros to expand. The company added that stronger penetration could unlock up to 10x open-interest penetration and roughly 15% incremental protocol fee growth. Boros has already listed a product tied to the funding rate of the HIP-3 NVIDIA perpetual market, and Pendle said the roadmap includes more exotic assets as well as equity perpetuals linked to S&P500, NASDAQ, AMZN, and TSLA.
Upgrade targets the broader DeFi yield layer
Pendle placed the token overhaul within a larger effort to build infrastructure for the yield layer of DeFi. The protocol said it has been expanding its toolkit across principal tokens, yield tokens, and funding-rate derivatives to widen access to onchain fixed-income strategies. The release also referenced ongoing integrations involving leverage strategies, AI applications, collateralized PT use, and cross-chain liquidity mechanisms.
From Pendle’s framing, sPENDLE is meant to reorganize incentives, liquidity, and revenue sharing under one structure while Boros adds a fresh growth path tied to funding-rate exposure. The announcement did not publish a full set of post-upgrade token economics, but it did make the direction clear: bring yield trading, rate derivatives, and protocol revenue distribution into a single token framework.