
Last Friday (March 14, 2 pm UTC), Minterest CEO Kyn joined the community for a Telegram AMA session to address key questions about the platform’s direction, recent strategic decisions & its approach to achieving sustainable growth, offering a clear explanation of the decision-making process
Minterest’s AMA with Kyn provided a transparent and in-depth look into the project’s approach, highlighting their focus on sustainability and long-term growth. While the community eagerly awaits the MINTY listing, the team is focused on ensuring strategic and sustainable growth for the long term. Acknowledging that it’s been a long journey, Minterest is committed to positioning MINTY for success upon launch. They also recognise the extended patience of the community and emphasise that there are behind-the-scenes factors driving these decisions.
Below are the major takeaways from the session, featuring direct excerpts from the real responses.
Q1. What specific market conditions led to the decision to delay the listing?
Kyn: We are all being impacted around the uncertainty of the broader global market, but that is not what primarily influenced our recent decision to adjust the MINTY listing strategy.
Our focus is on liquidity in DeFi and the lending space, which has changed significantly, and in a measurable way.
As a short recap from our latest blog post:
1. Capital has consolidated: Aave alone now holds nearly 50% of all lending TVL. This means that a handful of protocols are dominating the space, while most others struggle to maintain activity.
2. The lending sector is oversaturated: There are now over 500 lending protocols, up from 50 in 2023, yet the overall TVL has not grown since 2021. This creates an environment where every project is competing for the same liquidity.
3. Short-term LP deals are failing: Many projects have been offering 40-60%+ APY deals to attract private LPs, but these models don’t work beyond the short term. We are seeing capital exit as soon as rewards dry up.
For MINTY, this means listing now would not provide the strong entry we want. Instead of rushing forward, we are making sure that when MINTY lists, it does so with momentum, growing capital in the protocol, and real adoption.
Q2. Why was $50M in borrow TVL chosen as the target before listing, and why is this requirement only coming up now?
Kyn: We stay in close discussions with our core investors and partners, tracking how they navigate these conditions. One of the biggest shifts we’ve seen is that Web3 projects can no longer rely on their token treasuries the way they once did.
1. Liquidity is lower
2. Market caps have dropped below even 2022 levels
3. Projects are faced with pivoting or identifying ways to generate real revenue to stay afloat
This is a reality all Web3 projects will need to face. For Minterest, $50M in borrow TVL has always been an internal milestone target that indicates the protocol is moving towards levels that generate enough fees to support operations without relying entirely on external funding.
Given the current landscape, it now makes sense to make this a requirement before listing – ensuring that MINTY has a strong use case from day one, rather than relying on post-listing speculation.
Web3 businesses are simply not going to operate in the same way going forward. And we need to adjust to this mindset now in order to continue forward in a sustainable manner.
Q3. How do you respond to the argument that the lack of a MINTY token is actually preventing Minterest from growing?
Kyn: A liquid token can help drive engagement, and we are fully aware that emissions play a role in attracting LPs. That’s why Minterest already provides MNT (Mantle Network) emissions, which are entirely liquid, and have been for over 15 months now. LPs can supply and borrow to earn MNT there, which has proven to be a popular favorite, as it is unique across lending protocols on Mantle Network.
But a liquid token alone is not the answer. We have seen projects (Chains, DeFi protocols, etc) list their token first, hoping that would drive liquidity, only to end up in a situation where:
1. The token collapses due to a lack of real utility.
2. LPs exit once short-term incentives dry up.
If high APYs and token incentives were enough to guarantee success, every high-yield lending protocol would be thriving. But the reality is many projects are burning through incentives without building necessary adoption.
The goal is to grow supply and borrow in a way that lasts beyond just emission incentives, ensuring that MINTY launches with real demand behind it. And this approach requires real introspection, and a review of what will drive that beyond the playbook which has been in use for the last 5 years.
That is why we are prioritising $50M in borrow TVL first, to create a foundation that makes the token valuable from day one, rather than relying on hope, that the token itself creates demand.
Q4. Some people in the community feel let down by another delay, especially after multiple previous delays. How do you respond to that?
Kyn: I know this has become a bit of a running tale around Minterest listing delays as it is certainly not the first time we have pushed back listing. A point though is that every decision we made in the past was based on the conditions at the time and what we believed was in the best long-term interest of Minterest and MINTY holders.
But I also recognise that from the outside, it may feel like we are constantly moving the goalposts.
To be clear, this is not about avoiding a listing. A listing is a significant and expensive undertaking, and we have already committed time, resources, and financial outlay on legal work, deposits, and earlier marketing campaigns, particularly in mid-2024 when we were preparing to go live.
However, a poorly executed listing shortens the business’s runway. If we list without the right foundation, we risk damaging the project and the ability to maintain operations rather than strengthening it.
Considering all the hurdles we’ve already had to overcome as a community and team, we aren’t sticking around for the sake of it. Those hurdles have not been minor events either, from restructuring the business, managing a security breach, and developing under very challenging market environments with a lean and dedicated team.
We are still here because we believe in what we are building.
Q5. What steps are you taking to reach the $50M borrow TVL target?
Kyn: This is a time of exploration for product-market fit. Web3 is still in its early stages, with massive potential for growth, but onboarding remains a challenge.
What has been really surprising to us is that while market caps of a number of blue chip assets did reach ATHs, overall marketcap of Web3 reached ATHs, DeFi liquidity as a whole has not grown since 2021 levels!
This is not because DeFi does not work, but because it’s still just so complicated and friction heavy that 90% of crypto users just don’t use it yet.
That will change, but it also means for the time being this liquidity is being spread thin across a large number of chains and protocols.
With regulations coming in, new pathways to onboard users from Web 2, Trillions of capital is just waiting to come in to the space. DeFi will benefit, but we need to adjust our approach to make it easier to access.
So rather than just focus on the 10%, we are actively working on solutions to bridge this gap and grow Minterest’s TVL in a way that lasts. Some of the key areas we are focusing on include:
1. Liquidity Partnerships – We are working to onboard strategic LPs who can supply capital under steady conditions, rather than short-term APY farming. Stablecoin partnerships are a key part of this strategy.
2. Improving User Experience – DeFi remains friction-heavy, limiting adoption. We are exploring account abstraction, social logins, gas fee management, AI-driven solutions, and other ways to onboard the crypto users who do not use DeFi today.
I won’t claim there is a quick and easy fix, but this is the reality of where DeFi is today. We are taking a data-driven approach, testing what works, and refining our strategy to ensure Minterest scales in a way that is lasting.
Related to stablecoins, I actually love the dashboard on Artemis.xyz which highlights the incredible traction of Stables over the last 5 years. Even as we have faced bull and bear cycles, the adoption of stablecoins has continued to grow. It’s a testament to real product market fit.
Q6. What is the biggest takeaway from this AMA that you want the community to remember?
Kyn: Single biggest takeaway. That we are committed to getting this right.
For our team:
1. We are not rushing. We are executing strategically
2. We are focusing on sustainability, not hype
3. We are aligning MINTY’s launch with organic demand
I know this has been a long journey. But everything we are doing is to make sure that when MINTY launches, it is positioned for success.
And yes the patience has been extended beyond anyone’s expectation, including the team’s. That includes me, after taking the lead on the project. There are so many aspects that are not seen by the public, but drive key decisions.
And without seeing everything holistically it can seem like plans continue to change haphazardly. But that’s not the case, especially when so much is on the line.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us, and I appreciate all the questions today.
Q7. Minterest claims to have the best technology and yet is now claiming it can’t compete with 500 other protocols?
Kyn: The reality is technology alone does not guarantee dominance in DeFi. If it did, the most innovative protocols would automatically lead in TVL. But that’s not how the market works.
Right now, the most successful lending platforms aren’t winning because of their tech, they’re winning because of their liquidity and network effects. Aave, for example, now controls nearly 50% of all lending TVL. Not because it’s the most advanced protocol, but because it has the deepest pools of capital, the strongest integrations, and the longest track record.
Meanwhile, many of the 500+ lending apps aren’t competing by being better, they’re competing by offering insane incentives. As I mentioned 40-60% APY deals with private LPs aren’t innovation, they’re temporary band-aids. The moment those incentives stop, the capital leaves.
Minterest’s Solvency Engine and long-term token model are fundamentally different. We have tech that actually creates a fairer lending market, but that doesn’t mean we can magically bypass the liquidity challenge overnight.
What we are doing is building the right foundation first, so that when we scale, we do so with TVL that isn’t just here for a quick yield farm.
So yes, we believe in our tech. But we also recognise that winning in DeFi is as much about strategy as it is about innovation. That’s why we are executing in a way that supports long-term success, not just a short-term win.
As a side note the Minterest’s Solvency Engine and unique liquidation model have already proven to be highly efficient, protecting LPs from unfair liquidations better than any other lending protocol in the space. The Minterest protocol consistently protects LPs by up to 90%, in terms of the liquidations they might have faced on other lending protocols.
It’s performed incredibly over the last year, especially during massive flash crashes.
Q8. What internal team changes have happened in Minterest, and how does this impact operations?
Kyn: We have onboarded new team members since the end of last year, including a CMO, content writer, community lead, and additional engineering team members. Each of these hires has strengthened our ability to execute across key areas, product development, marketing, and community engagement.
The team members who have joined are all highly capable and dedicated to Minterest’s cause. These people are all actively involved in accelerating our efforts now and moving forward towards Minterest’s Product Market Fit strategy. And I couldn’t be prouder of them for managing through the challenges and maintaining their enthusiasm and dedication to our mission, to make DeFi accessible across all borders to empower the masses around the world.
Q9. What new developments have happened since the last AMA?
Kyn: Since the last AMA, we deployed Minterest’s latest integration on Morph via adaptiFi, marking the first franchise deployment of Minterest’s technology. This is an important milestone, as it shows that Minterest can scale beyond just our own direct deployments and be used by other ecosystems to build lending solutions.
It’s a slow burn growth approach with Morph but we like their team and strategic approach to gain traction.
We are now working alongside the Morph team to drive growth for adaptiFi, and borrowing functionality will be introduced soon.
As most in the community know, deploying Minterest with full features is a structured process, we do not launch borrow markets on Day 1 because security and stability come first.
Q10. What is the plan to turn around the loss of confidence from early backers?
Kyn: It has been a long journey, and the delays have tested patience. But Minterest has been here a long time for Web3 as well. For those who have been with us since 2021, they’ll know that there was a significant restructuring of the business and leadership change due to the initial capital invested in Minterest under former founder, Josh Rogers, being fully exhausted by early 2023.
The remaining team behind Minterest continued to believe in its vision and found a way to restructure the project and continue onwards, with a much leaner approach. During this time many projects that launched chasing short-term hype no longer exist. Minterest has continued building because we are not here for a quick exit. We are here to create something for the future.
For us, turning this around isn’t about making promises. It’s about delivering on the strategy we’ve laid out, focusing on TVL growth and protocol sustainability to support MINTY’s long-term success.
We are committed to executing in a way that benefits those who have supported us along the way, but it will take time as we figure the process out.
Even then, Minterest is a business at the end of the day, and working through the options we have on the table is a core priority for all of us. And the community will be informed of the progress as we make it all along the way.
Also, note that we aren’t pausing feature development on Minterest. That will continue forward even as we explore new options.
From everyone at Minterest, we thank you for the willingness to believe. And we’ll do the best we can to achieve success, together.
Thanks to everyone who joined the AMA! For future updates, please follow Minterest on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube and join the conversation on Discord and Telegram.