What are the functions of TREE? 1. Fragmentation of interest rates The cryptocurrency fixed income market is severely fragmented, with significant interest rate differences for the same asset when traded across different protocols. Unlike traditional finance, where a unified benchmark interest rate ensures market efficiency, DeFi often lacks a unified reference point, leading to inefficiencies that suppress institutional adoption and limit the development of complex financial products. This fragmentation is particularly evident in the Ethereum lending market, where lending rates for ETH can exhibit dramatic changes across platforms like Aave, Compound, and Spark. This inconsistency creates uncertainty for users seeking the best terms and hinders the development of complex financial instruments that require stable, predictable reference rates. 2. Lack of infrastructure in professional finance Traditional finance heavily relies on benchmark interest rates like LIBOR (now SOFR) when pricing trillions of dollars in financial products, ranging from corporate bonds to derivative contracts. The cryptocurrency market lacks equivalent infrastructure, which limits the development of complex fixed income products required by institutional investors. Without standardized reference rates, creating products such as interest rate swaps, floating rate notes, or complex yield curves is nearly impossible. 3. Limited yield optimization opportunities Opportunities to generate stable returns through interest rate arbitrage strategies have historically been available only to institutional participants with substantial capital and complex infrastructure. Retail investors and small institutions are unable to effectively capitalize on interest rate differences between protocols, missing out on enhanced yields that professional traders routinely obtain.