CeFi lending drops to $23.3B; Tether holds 68%

Centralized crypto lending contracted 6% in Q1 2026 to $23.3 billion, marking the sector’s first quarterly decline since Q3 2024. Tether’s loan book stood at $15.8 billion, representing roughly 68% of the tracked CeFi market.

CryptoQuant data show the quarter’s decline coincided with weaker digital-asset prices and reduced borrowing against crypto collateral. Total CeFi loan books fell as borrowers scaled back crypto-backed loans used for trading, treasury management and operating needs, while lenders tightened underwriting and collateral requirements.

Platform-level figures were uneven. Maple Finance held $2.1 billion in loans, or about 9% market share, and Nexo reported $1.8 billion, or about 8%. Coinbase and Galaxy each accounted for roughly 6% of the market, and Ledn represented about 3%.

Quarter-over-quarter movements varied: Galaxy’s lending book fell 21% and Ledn’s dropped 19%, the steepest declines among major lenders. Tether’s book declined about 7% in percentage terms; because of its size, that reduction was the largest in dollar terms even as Tether remained larger than the other tracked CeFi lenders combined.

Some platforms expanded loan books in Q1. Maple and Coinbase each grew their books by about 6%, and Nexo’s book increased nearly 1%. Those gains translated into market-share changes: Maple added about one percentage point, Coinbase gained about 0.7 percentage points and Nexo about 0.5 percentage points. Galaxy lost roughly 1.1 percentage points and Tether fell about 0.7 percentage points.

Loan-book contractions were concentrated in lenders with larger declines in absolute or percentage terms, while platforms that maintained lending and tighter collateral controls saw incremental share gains during the quarter.