Compound Foundation opens institutional-only lending market in biggest DeFi pivot yet

Compound Foundation launched a permissioned lending market on September 8 that only institutional borrowers can access, effectively carving the protocol’s liquidity pool into two distinct layers. Whitelisted participants get their own collateral sets, custom loan-to-value ratios, and tailored risk parameters, all separate from the retail-facing side of the protocol. The move comes three weeks after Compound relaunched itself around institutional credit, and roughly a month after a DAO vote approved a $52 million development program, the largest funding initiative in the protocol’s history. A protocol reinventing itself In August, Compound’s DAO greenlit the two-year, $52 million budget with $14 million released upfront and the rest gated behind milestones. The program is focused on onboarding regulated financial players: banks, asset managers, exchanges, and fintechs. Leading the charge is a new executive team with deep roots in traditional finance. Aaron Schnarch, formerly CEO of Coinbase Custody, now serves as Executive Director. Christopher Donovan holds the COO role, Steven Liu is CPO, and Leo Eikelman fills the CTO seat. The foundation says it has more than 10 confirmed partne...