February 11 News, decentralized finance protocol Spark announced the launch of a new institutional lending infrastructure aimed at building a secure channel between on-chain capital and traditional financial systems. Through the two main products, Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending, Spark is bringing the most robust stablecoin liquidity in the DeFi space into the institutional lending market, which has long relied on off-chain methods.
Spark stated that these two services have expanded over $9 billion in deployed stablecoin liquidity to hedge funds, trading firms, and fintech institutions that need to meet custody and compliance requirements. According to Galaxy data, the off-chain crypto lending market is approximately $33 billion, indicating that many institutions remain cautious about directly engaging with on-chain assets, but the demand for crypto-related financing remains strong.
Phoenix Labs co-founder Sam MacPherson noted that the new system essentially involves over-the-counter crypto lending through qualified custodians, using an over-collateralization structure to reduce systemic risk. He emphasized that unsecured loans in the past caused serious consequences, but the new design significantly improves loan safety through risk controls and custodial segregation.
Spark Prime introduces a unified collateral framework, allowing borrowers to flexibly deploy collateral across centralized platforms, DeFi protocols, and qualified custodians, while managing liquidations under a single risk engine. The system is supported technically by prime broker Arkis, which can automatically trigger cross-platform liquidations when the combined risk exceeds thresholds, providing higher capital efficiency for high-frequency strategies like hedge funds.
Spark Institutional Lending targets institutions preferring a fully custodial model. By partnering with service providers like Anchorage Digital, borrowers can use custodial collateral within a regulated environment and access on-chain liquidity pools managed by Spark.
Previously, Spark has provided core liquidity support for several institutional products, including hundreds of millions of dollars for the 2025 Bitcoin lending project and stablecoin ecosystems. This upgrade signifies that Spark is gradually becoming a key infrastructure connecting stablecoin demand with global capital markets. (CoinDesk)
Disclaimer: The information on this page may come from third parties and does not represent the views or opinions of Gate. The content displayed on this page is for reference only and does not constitute any financial, investment, or legal advice. Gate does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information and shall not be liable for any losses arising from the use of this information. Virtual asset investments carry high risks and are subject to significant price volatility. You may lose all of your invested principal. Please fully understand the relevant risks and make prudent decisions based on your own financial situation and risk tolerance. For details, please refer to
Disclaimer.
Related Articles
Circle launches Nanopayments testnet, supporting micro-payments as low as 0.000001 USD in USDC
Circle announces the launch of the Circle Nanopayments testnet, supporting transfers of as little as $0.000001 USDC with no Gas fees, aiming to provide a payment infrastructure for the Agent economy. Using off-chain transaction aggregation and delayed on-chain settlement, developers can enable various payment scenarios. The solution has been deployed on multiple testnet chains.
GateNews16m ago
Ripple’s RLUSD Hits $320 Billion Market Cap as Stablecoin Adoption Explodes Across 106 Countries
Stablecoins processed $33 trillion in 2025. Let that sink in for a second. That’s twice the entire annual volume of Visa.
Reece Merrick, one of Ripple’s directors, shared the numbers on X and made it clear, this is the moment Ripple’s been building toward. RLUSD is their answer:
CaptainAltcoin1h ago
Sonic Labs Launches USSD, Network-Native Dollar Stablecoin
Sonic’s USSD stablecoin offers permissionless, zero-fee USD access with institutional backing for secure, composable liquidity.
Cross-chain minting and redemption make USSD a flexible dollar for trading, lending, and treasury operations across networks.
Yield from USSD’s backing assets
CryptoFrontNews2h ago
Circle Moves $68M in USDC to Speed Treasury Settlements
Circle processed $68M in intercompany transfers using USDC across 11 transactions involving eight global entities.
USDC settlements confirmed in under 30 minutes, replacing traditional bank wires that could take up to three days.
Faster settlement reduced cash-in-transit exposure and
CryptoFrontNews3h ago
Mega Bank's Director Rui-bin Zhuang tests stablecoin remittances, but the costs of blockchain are misunderstood.
Mega Financial Holding Co. held a media briefing on the 10th. Chairman Dong Rui-bin revealed that to objectively compare the efficiency of bank and blockchain remittances, Mega Bank mobilized 17 countries worldwide and 25 overseas branches last year for testing. Branch staff opened accounts at local legal exchanges and used the virtual asset trading platform BitoPro to trade USDT stablecoins, transferring 50 USDT each time back to Taiwan, and compared this with traditional bank cross-border wire transfers.
The results showed that stablecoins do have advantages for small-scale cross-border remittances. However, for remittance amounts exceeding the equivalent of NT$200,000 (about $7,000 USD), banks remain more cost-competitive.
Mega Experiment: Banks Are More Cost-Effective for Transfers Over $7,000 USD
The test results indicated that in the scenario of "paying NT$ in Taiwan and receiving local currency at the destination," bank wire transfers generally arrive within about 2 hours, with a fee of approximately
ChainNewsAbmedia5h ago
HyperGPT Launches HyperStore, an AI App Marketplace for Web3
HyperGPT has launched HyperStore, an AI app marketplace connecting developers and users, enabling app monetization and promotion within a growing community. Developers can showcase various AI products to earn revenue while simplifying access to Web3 users.
BlockChainReporter6h ago
