Solana Had the Answer to DeFi’s Biggest Problem?

2025.06.17
DeFi

On today’s Talking Tokens episode, Jacquelyn sat down with Mary Gooneratne, co-founder of Loopscale. Loopscale is a lending protocol on Solana designed to give sophisticated users more control over capital, collateral, and credit risk.

They discuss how Mary went from building on Ethereum during DeFi summer to pivoting toward Solana, why the protocol shifted from pool-based lending to order-book-style credit markets, and how Loopscale recovered all user funds after a $5.8 million exploit. Mary breaks down the differences between institutional and retail borrowing behavior, how its fixed yield looping product hit $1 billion in volume, and why she believes DeFi can rebuild global credit markets more transparently than traditional finance.

This episode is a part of the Solana Sessions campaign that Token Relations and the Talking Tokens podcast are doing, diving into founders’ journeys and startups building on Solana.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Mary’s background and founding Loopscale
2:24 From tokenized whiskey casks to crypto credit markets
4:23 Why lending hasn’t evolved like trading on Solana
6:01 Pool-based model limitations and capital inefficiency
8:11 Why Solana was the only viable chain
11:02 Inside the $5.8M exploit and recovery process
13:08 Lessons from the hack and security upgrades
17:12 New risk controls and protocol design changes
20:03 Who uses Loopscale: LPs, whales, and institutions
21:24 What products are growing fastest
24:07 Why idle Solana liquidity is a huge opportunity
25:58 The future: real-world assets and institutional lending
27:10 What institutions want from on-chain credit
28:21 Global credit markets and underserved borrowers
30:13 What’s next: sponsored credit vaults
30:29 Final advice: talk often and talk to builders

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Note that this podcast is for informational purposes only and any views shared by anyone on the show are opinions, not financial advice. The host or guests may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this episode.