21Shares Launches Pendle ETP on SIX Swiss Exchange, Boosting Institutional DeFi Adoption
In a landmark move for decentralized finance, asset manager 21Shares has launched an exchange-traded product (ETP) tracking Pendle on the SIX Swiss Exchange. This development signals deepening institutional recognition of Pendle's role in bridging traditional fixed-income markets with DeFi infrastructure, creating new pathways for professional investors to access yield-tokenization protocols through regulated vehicles.
The APEN ETP: Institutional Gateway to Yield Tokenization
Asset manager 21Shares launched an exchange-traded product called APEN based on Pendle on October 28th, 2025. This development represents a significant milestone in the convergence of traditional finance and decentralized systems. The ETP structure provides institutional investors—including asset managers, hedge funds, pension funds and other large-scale capital allocators—with regulated access to Pendle's ecosystem through familiar capital-markets infrastructure including custody, reporting, and established regulatory frameworks.
The launch presents several important themes for institutional adoption: first, that institutional capital is beginning to adopt yield-tokenisation platforms; second, that protocols like Pendle are maturing beyond experimental to investible, regulated-friendly instruments; and third, that the broader narrative of DeFi accessing the massive fixed-income market is moving from theory into execution. By packaging Pendle's exposure into an ETP, 21Shares effectively bridges DeFi protocols with institutional workflows that demand scale, liquidity, transparency, and regulated access.
Pendle's $70 Billion Yield Settlement: Bridging Traditional and Decentralized Finance
One of the most notable metrics underlying Pendle's institutional appeal is the protocol's recent achievement of settling $70 billion in yield. This substantial volume effectively creates a bridge between the roughly $140 trillion global fixed-income market and crypto-native infrastructure. The milestone demonstrates how Pendle's approach is emerging as a viable link between traditional finance and decentralized systems.
This settlement volume represents more than just numerical growth—it reflects fundamental market behavior shifts occurring on-chain. As noted in recent commentary from analysts, yield-tokenization has grown ready for institutions, underscoring the platform's revenue-generating capabilities. The ability to settle tens of billions in yield provides the scale and reliability that institutional participants require when considering allocation to new financial infrastructures.
Boros: $2.83 Billion Trading Volume in Three Months
Another indicator of Pendle's growing traction is its latest product called Boros, designed specifically for trading funding rates from various centralized and decentralized exchanges in a DeFi-native environment. Boros recently achieved an accumulated trading volume of $2.83 billion in just three months, highlighting the substantial market potential for trading funding rates through decentralized protocols.
The Boros product demonstrates Pendle's capacity to innovate beyond traditional yield tokenization and address specific market inefficiencies across both centralized and decentralized exchanges. This trading volume, achieved in such a short timeframe, provides additional validation of Pendle's underlying technology and market fit while contributing to the overall liquidity profile that institutions consider essential for viable investment opportunities.
Institutional Adoption Requirements: Scale, Liquidity, and Regulated Access
Institutional investors typically demand specific characteristics before allocating capital: scale, liquidity, transparency, and regulated access. Traditional fixed-income markets offer substantial scale but often suffer from opacity, illiquidity for certain instruments, and high entry thresholds that limit accessibility for some market participants.
Pendle's architecture directly addresses these requirements by transforming yield streams into tradeable tokens that enable access, transparency, and composability—features that align well with institutional tooling requirements. As Abdelmawla Karim, Senior Digital Asset Researcher at 21Shares, emphasized: "$PENDLE potential TAM is the massive interest rate derivatives, which alone represent $500T+ in TradFi. Fixed yields aren't just a pillar of institutional finance, they are the market."
This perspective underscores why Pendle's approach resonates with institutional needs. The protocol's ability to create programmable fixed-income-style exposure through blockchain technology positions it at the intersection of traditional finance requirements and decentralized innovation.
Yield Tokenization Evolution: From Experimental to Institutional Grade
The journey of yield tokenization protocols has evolved significantly since early DeFi experiments. Initially characterized by high yields but limited institutional compatibility, the space has gradually matured toward solutions that can meet professional investor standards. Pendle's progression reflects this broader industry trend toward institutional-grade infrastructure.
The platform's status as the world's largest crypto-yield-trading platform that enables users to separate and trade the future yield streams of yield-bearing assets in DeFi represents a fundamental advancement in how fixed-income exposure can be structured and accessed. By enabling tokenization of both principal tokens and yield tokens, Pendle has created a foundation for programmable fixed-income-style exposure that maintains blockchain's inherent advantages while addressing institutional requirements.
Market Context: The $140 Trillion Fixed-Income Opportunity
The global fixed-income market represents approximately $140 trillion in value, creating substantial opportunity for protocols that can effectively bridge traditional instruments with decentralized infrastructure. Pendle's approach to this market focuses on creating accessible, transparent, and composable versions of fixed-income exposure that leverage blockchain's inherent advantages.
Traditional fixed-income markets, while massive in scale, often present barriers including intermediation costs, settlement delays, and accessibility limitations. Pendle's architecture addresses these challenges by enabling direct access to yield streams through tokenized representations that can be traded, composed with other DeFi protocols, and integrated into broader financial strategies. This approach potentially unlocks portions of the fixed-income market that have historically been inaccessible to certain investor classes or inefficiently priced due to structural limitations.
Comparative Analysis: Pendle's Position in the ETP Landscape
The 21Shares Pendle ETP joins a growing ecosystem of crypto-focused exchange-traded products available on regulated exchanges like SIX Swiss Exchange. Unlike broad-market crypto ETPs that track major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, APEN represents a more specialized exposure to a specific DeFi protocol and its underlying yield-tokenization technology.
This specialization reflects the maturation of both the crypto ETP market and DeFi infrastructure more broadly. While early crypto ETPs focused primarily on providing basic cryptocurrency exposure, newer products like APEN target specific technological approaches or market segments within the broader digital asset ecosystem. This evolution parallels traditional finance ETP development patterns where products progressed from broad market exposure to increasingly specialized strategies and thematic investments.
Strategic Implications for DeFi Institutional Adoption
The launch of 21Shares' Pendle ETP represents more than just another product introduction—it signals a meaningful shift in how institutions can access and interact with DeFi protocols. By providing regulated exposure through established exchange infrastructure, the ETP lowers barriers for institutional participation while maintaining connection to Pendle's underlying innovation.
This model potentially establishes a template for how other DeFi protocols might achieve institutional adoption without compromising their decentralized nature. The combination of on-chain protocol innovation with traditional financial wrappers creates hybrid access points that satisfy regulatory requirements while preserving exposure to decentralized systems' benefits.
Future Trajectory: Programmable Fixed-Income Markets
With the institutional gateway now established via the 21Shares ETP, Pendle appears positioned to scale its offerings—whether via fixed-rate instruments, yield tokenization of new asset classes, or deeper tradable products. For institutions looking to access the approximately $140 trillion fixed-income market through a programmable, permissionless lens, Pendle offers a contemporary avenue that combines traditional finance concepts with blockchain innovation.
The protocol's continued integration of real-world assets and yield markets suggests expanding utility for professional investors seeking exposure to programmable fixed-income solutions. As Pendle matures further and demonstrates reliability at scale, additional institutional use cases will likely emerge across risk management, portfolio construction, and yield optimization strategies.
Conclusion: From Innovation to Institutional Infrastructure
The launch of the 21Shares Pendle ETP on SIX Swiss Exchange marks a significant juncture where the world's largest crypto-yield trading platform enters the infrastructure of institutional finance. With $70 billion settled in yield, billions in trading volume through products like Boros, and now ETP access via established exchanges, Pendle demonstrates clear progression from innovative protocol to institutional-ready infrastructure.
For market observers and participants, this development warrants attention not just for its immediate impact but for what it signals about DeFi's broader maturation trajectory. The successful integration of yield-tokenization protocols with traditional financial products suggests increasing convergence between decentralized and traditional finance systems. As institutions continue seeking exposure to blockchain-based financial innovations while maintaining regulatory compliance requirements, hybrid models like the Pendle ETP may become increasingly prevalent—potentially accelerating capital flows between traditional and decentralized financial systems while creating new opportunities for yield generation and risk management across both domains.