It is **ultra-high-risk retail speculators**. Not institutions. Degenerates. Pendle accidentally built the engine for the 2024 crypto points mania. Users exploited the protocol's math to multiply their exposure to imaginary loyalty points. Total value locked hit $13.4 billion. Gathering deposits in a bull market is simple. What they did with the cash is the anomaly. Most decentralized protocols hemorrhage money. They print native tokens to pay users. They bleed cash.