In the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), fixed income has always been a tricky issue. Traditional financial benchmark rates like LIBOR are often manipulated, while on-chain markets are severely fragmented. The Treehouse protocol, as a major work of Treehouse Labs, is changing all of this by introducing tAssets and decentralized quoted rates (DOR). The TREE token is the core driving force of this ecosystem 💪. As of August 2025, Treehouse's TVL has exceeded $500 million, with TREE's price stabilizing around $0.32, showing strong market confidence. Let's delve deeper into the charm of this token; it is not just a governance tool but also a bridge connecting users, developers, and protocols.
🔑 TREE's fundamental attributes and practical value
The TREE token is based on the ERC-20 standard, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens, and it has been listed on Binance, with a circulating supply of about 156 million tokens 🪙. Unlike purely speculative assets, TREE's design emphasizes practicality: it is used to pay DOR query fees, ensuring that referencers contribute ecological revenue when using interest rate data. These fees are routed to panel members and delegators, forming a self-circulating economic model.
On the governance level, TREE holders can influence protocol parameters through DAO voting, such as adjusting staking requirements or allocating bonuses. This reminds me of the recent GoNuts Season 2 event, where users could earn Believer’s Blessing Buff by staking TREE, boosting up to 1000% 🚀. This incentive not only enhances participation but also allows the community to genuinely lead protocol development. Treehouse's Pre-Deposit Vaults offer 50-75% APR, attracting many users to stake TREE in support of DOR panel members, ensuring the accuracy of interest rate predictions.
📈 Tokenomics: A design for sustainable growth
The distribution logic of TREE is super balanced, with a clear community orientation: strategic investors 17.5%, team 12.5%, core contributors 5%, treasury 12.5%, ecological fund 10%, liquidity provision 3%, community airdrop 10%, exchange cooperation 3.75%, future airdrop 5.75%, and community rewards up to 20% 📊. This proportion ensures the interests of long-term holders and avoids short-term cashing out that could crash the price.
The release plan is also robust: strategic investors will unlock 10% after 6 months, then linearly release the rest over 30 months; the team will unlock 10% after 12 months, with a gradual release over 42 months; the treasury and ecological fund will unlock gradually over 48 months. This progressive design seems to inject vitality into the ecosystem slowly 🔄. After the recent Gaia TGE (Token Generation Event), TREE further enhanced its liquidity through airdrops and LP pools (such as Balancer's TREE-WETH and Uniswap's TREE-USDC). Data shows that when TVL surged to $500 million, TREE's price briefly reached $0.60; despite a pullback, the weekly increase was still 2.88%, proving the market's recognition of the protocol.
TREE's economic model emphasizes the security of crypto economy: panel members need to stake TREE to submit interest rate forecasts, and erroneous data will face penalties. This not only enhances the reliability of DOR but also incentivizes high-quality input through consensus rewards. Imagine TREE as the 'blood' of the ecosystem, circulating to invigorate tAssets and DOR.
🌐 TREE's key role in the ecosystem
TREE is deeply embedded in the core primitives of Treehouse. tAssets, as LST 2.0, optimize yields through interest rate arbitrage. tETH is the first product running on the Ethereum mainnet, arbitraging with Lido's wstETH in Aave and Spark protocols to earn market efficiency yield (MEY) 📉. Users holding tETH not only enjoy PoS rewards but can also earn additional returns by delegating to panel members, with TREE being the essential requirement for staking to ensure the system is censorship-resistant.
DOR addresses the pain points of traditional benchmarks by generating forward-looking interest rate curves through consensus mechanisms. Five key roles—operators, panel members, referencers, delegators, and end users—drive the system: operators manage data flows, panel members submit forecasts, and referencers build products like interest rate swaps. TREE pays query fees and distributes consensus rewards 👍. Recent updates show that DOR has expanded to CeFi index audits and is seeking benchmark authorization, which will further increase the demand for TREE.
In multi-chain expansion, Treehouse's roadmap shows that Q3 2025 will push tAssets to BNB and Solana, with L2 integration reducing costs. TREE supports these expansions by incentivizing developers to collaborate through DAO rewards, building an OTC market for ETH forward rate agreements (FRA), and even listing on CEX 💼. This is not just technological innovation, but also reshapes the efficiency of on-chain finance.
💡 Risks and Opportunities: A professional perspective on TREE
Of course, any token comes with risks. Although TREE's staking mechanism has an insurance fund and multiple rounds of audits (such as HackenProof's bug bounty), market volatility is inevitable. In August 2025, TREE's price pulled back from $0.60 to $0.32, reflecting adjustments after the surge in TVL. However, the opportunities are greater: as the cornerstone of DeFi fixed income, TREE's practicality will increase with the rise in DOR adoption rates. Community rewards and airdrops (like the GoNuts event) allow ordinary users to participate, enhancing loyalty.
The transition from LIBOR to DOR sees TREE playing a key bridging role. It connects traditional finance with DeFi, promoting standardized interest rate curves. In the future, as tAssets cross-chain and DOR integrates with institutions, TREE may become the benchmark token, leading the fixed income revolution 🔮.
🚀 Outlook: TREE's infinite potential
Looking ahead to the second half of 2025, Treehouse's multi-chain roadmap will accelerate, and TREE's governance rights will empower more users. Holding TREE is not just an investment; it is joining a transformation. The community is vibrant, with staking in Pre-Deposit Vaults attracting institutional funds. In short, TREE is the soul of Treehouse, driving sustainable DeFi growth. If you're interested in fixed income, don't miss this opportunity 😎.