Spark deploys $150 million into Uniswap v4 as lending hits $260M

Spark moved $150 million into Uniswap v4 stablecoin pools and pushed institutional lending to $260 million, betting fragmentation creates a role for neutral DeFi rails.

Spark, the lending unit of the Sky ecosystem, deployed $150 million into Uniswap v4 stablecoin pools as its institutional lending book reached $260 million outstanding.

"Stablecoin liquidity is about to fragment more and more," Sam MacPherson, chief executive of Phoenix Labs, the developer behind Spark, said.

The Uniswap v4 deployment pairs USDS against USDT and PYUSD, accounting for about 30 percent of stablecoin-to-stablecoin swap volume on Uniswap and routing roughly $1.5 billion in its first 30 days, MacPherson said. The mechanism, a v4 hook called DualPool, keeps liquidity earning yield in Spark's vaults while idle and pulls it into the pool only when a swap needs it.

Spark's Bitcoin-backed over-the-counter loans issued through Anchorage stand at about $260 million outstanding, with roughly $400 million originated and a target of $1 billion by year-end. The bet is that a fragmented stablecoin market needs a neutral intermediary to move money between networks.

From consumer app to backend rails

The deployment follows Spark's decision late last year to shelve a consumer-facing app that would have placed it in direct competition with Coinbase, PayPal and Robinhood for distribution. MacPherson described the strategy as "doubling down on this more B2B or B2B2C model," supplying yield and liquidity to apps consumers already use rather than building its own customer relationships.

Robinhood's Earn product shows how that model works. Launched with an APY of roughly 7 percent on USDG deposits, it routes user funds into a Morpho onchain vault curated by Steakhouse Financial, which allocates across lending markets involving Ethena's USDe, Maple's syrupUSDG and Spark's spUSDG. The vault has drawn more than $200 million in deposits in the last 24 days, according to onchain data.

Spark is one of several protocols in the stack, but MacPherson pointed to the arrangement as evidence the model works. "Robinhood is quite large, and so we expect this to grow to billions in size," he said.

Institutional push targets $1 billion

The backend strategy extends to direct institutional lending, unfolding during a difficult stretch for decentralized finance. Spark's annual revenue fell from about $80 million during the bull market to roughly $20 million today, MacPherson said.

Demand for Bitcoin-backed loans comes partly from miners, who "need to fund operations at all times regardless of whether it's a bull or bear market," MacPherson said. The bottleneck, he added, is onboarding speed. Spark Prime, a hybrid prime brokerage, holds about $20 million in outstanding loans and remains in a deliberate beta.

The protocol is also pursuing credit ratings from S&P and Moody's alongside assessments from crypto-native agencies such as Credora, which could help institutional risk teams approve Spark as a counterparty. With the GENIUS Act coming into force next year and the Clarity Act potentially advancing, MacPherson projects onchain payments could reach $3 trillion by 2030.

MacPherson frames the bear market as manageable. "This has been one of the easier bear markets," he said. "The fundamentals, adoption, the regulatory clarity, it's all systems go on the institutional side." Spark provides "the rails and the liquidity services," and its bet is that fragmentation creates a valuable role for a neutral intermediary — one that becomes harder to justify if issuers keep liquidity inside their own networks.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.