Fortune Magazine just published its first-ever Crypto Innovators list, and Pendle Finance made the cut. The list highlights 30 companies that Fortune considers leaders in the digital assets ecosystem, and Pendle’s inclusion puts the yield tokenization protocol in some notable company.
What Pendle actually does
The protocol lets users divide yield-bearing assets into principal tokens (PT) and yield tokens (YT). The principal token gives you a fixed return at maturity, basically locking in your yield. The yield token lets you speculate on whether future yields will go up or down.
Founded in 2020 by TN Lee and Vu Nguyen, the protocol operates across multiple blockchain networks. Its current total value locked sits at approximately $1.15 billion, a substantial sum but far below its peak.
That peak? Over $8 billion in 2025, with an average TVL of roughly $5.7 billion throughout the year.
