Measuring Crypto Leverage Across Lending, Treasury Firms, and Futures
Summary
This quarterly report tracks crypto leverage across centralized and decentralized lending, crypto-backed stablecoin issuance, publicly traded digital-asset treasury companies, and futures markets. It reports that on-chain crypto-collateralized loans rose sharply in the second quarter of 2025, while centralized borrow balances and futures open interest also increased. The analysis attributes lending growth partly to rising asset prices and notes that treasury companies were an emerging source of borrowing demand, even as their tracked debt balance remained unchanged.
The report compares lender books and market shares, describes changes in venue coverage, and discusses how borrowing costs and collateralized positions evolved. It cautions that combined totals can double-count exposure when centralized lenders borrow on-chain and relend off-chain. Centralized lender data also vary in availability and accounting methods, and some figures supplied by private lenders were not independently vetted. The report is a period-specific market inventory; it measures outstanding positions rather than establishing that leverage growth will continue or predicting future market performance.
Key ideas
- The report combines centralized and decentralized lending, collateralized stablecoin issuance, treasury-company debt, and futures open interest to map crypto leverage.
- On-chain lending balances rose substantially in the second quarter of 2025.
- Rising asset prices, borrowing demand, and competition among lenders are discussed as contributors to lending growth.
- Combined lending totals may double-count activity when centralized firms borrow through DeFi and lend to clients off-chain.
- Centralized lending data are less transparent and consistent than on-chain records, limiting comparability.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.