Today, Icebreaker Finance launch a pool on Maple to provide secured debt financing to public and private blue-chip bitcoin mining and digital asset infrastructure companies in North America, Canada and Australia. The pool opens with a $300M capacity and seeks to deliver low-teens risk-adjusted returns to accredited investors and capital allocators.

Underlying loans comprising the pool will have a 12-18 month tenor with interest rates typically ranging from 15-20% and secured on a first priority basis by both real-world and digital collateral with full recourse to the borrower.

For Maple, this marks the first time real-world assets will be used as collateral on the platform and the first step outside of the existing market-maker borrower set. For investors, the opening of pool is the first public opportunity to lend to mining and digital asset infrastructure providers, and we're proud to bring this to market with Icebreaker Finance.

View the Icebreaker Pool on the Maple WebApp.

Icebreaker Finance, a team with significant structured finance and capital markets experience and the support of leading Australian blockchain and bitcoin mining investors, will be responsible for managing and administering loans via the Maple platform. The team is led by Glyn Jones, who brings experience from various leadership positions in financial markets including Managing Director roles at Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and before launching Icebreaker earlier this year served as General Manager for ANZ.

“Recent market headwinds have caused lenders to pull back, while traditional financing vehicles have been slower to engage this sector. Miners play an essential role in growing the crypto ecosystem and local economies, and we are proud to extend a new financing vehicle to direct capital where it is needed the most,” said Sidney Powell, CEO and Co-Founder of Maple Finance. “Icebreaker Finance brings years of senior level experience from finance and capital markets backgrounds, but also has deep roots in infrastructure and hard assets to confidently lend in this emerging space.” 

The pool targets public and private blue-chip borrowers which have effective treasury management and prudent power strategies. Icebreaker’s investment committee will thoroughly evaluate each borrowers’ financial performance, balance sheet strength, treasury and energy risk management expertise, and operational efficiency. All loans will be fully collateralized by real-world assets including mining rigs, power transformers, other infrastructure assets, as well as digital assets, and have recourse to the borrower.

“Icebreaker Finance was formed with the goal of improving the efficiency of capital markets by leveraging blockchain based technologies,'' said Glyn Jones, CEO and Founder of Icebreaker Finance. "The market is now maturing to appreciate that non-recourse SPV ASIC backed financing can be inappropriate given the volatility in value of ASICs. Instead, a more diverse security package is required.  Maple’s out-of-the-box, on-chain lending toolkit enables us to align incentives of lenders and borrowers to execute loans on-chain with terms that reflect the emerging nature of the industry more efficiently than we could elsewhere.” 

Maple is a leader in the DeFi lending market, holding 50% of the market measured by total loans outstanding across institutional DeFi lending platforms. At the time of writing, liquidity pools on Maple have issued close to $1.8BN loans on the platform since the launch of the first pool in May 2021. Maple onboards pool delegates with proven track records in due diligence and underwriting standards, resulting in $10M in defaults to date. Maple plans to open additional pools for the growing mining sector and soon expand to launch pools that service financial technology companies.

About Maple:

Maple is an institutional capital network bringing the trillion-dollar capital markets on-chain. Maple provides the infrastructure for credit experts to efficiently manage and scale crypto lending businesses and connects capital from institutional and individual lenders to cash generative, creditworthy companies. Maple combines industry-standard compliance and due diligence with the frictionless lending enabled by smart contracts and blockchain technology. For more information, visit maple.finance. 

About Icebreaker Finance:

Icebreaker Finance is an Australian-founded business aiming to improve the efficiency of capital markets by leveraging blockchain based technologies. Icebreaker Finance leverages the transparency and cost efficiencies inherent in DeFi with institutional grade credit and liquidity risk management to improve outcomes for lenders and institutional borrowers. For more information, visit icebreakerfinance.biz.