Recently, Huma.Finance, which focuses on the "PayFi Network Protocol" concept, has attracted market attention due to disputes between team members and key opinion leaders, even reigniting heated discussions about whether academic credentials are important in the crypto field. Combined with the Huma 2.0 system launched on the Solana network on April 10 and the trade war initiated by the Trump administration, the PayFi track has gained momentum again.
Given this, this article provides a brief introduction to Huma and discusses whether it poses risks similar to previous P2P project collapses.
Initial Exploration of Huma: A New Star in the Solana Ecosystem
It's worth noting that Huma is not a "native project" of the Solana ecosystem, but expanded from the Ethereum ecosystem to the Solana network in November last year.
In February 2023, Huma completed a $8.3 million funding round, led by Race Capital and Distributed Global, with participation from ParaFi, Circle Ventures, Robot Ventures, and others. At that time, the project was positioned as a DeFi lending protocol.
In September 2024, after merging with cross-border payment platform Arf in April, Huma announced the completion of a $38 million funding round (including $10 million in equity investment and $28 million in revenue-generating RWA), led by initial investor Distributed Global, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, and TIBAS Ventures, the venture capital arm of Turkey's largest private bank İşbank. At that time, the project was positioned as an RWA platform.
It wasn't until the ecosystem expansion in November that Huma officially positioned itself as the "first PayFi Network".
According to Huma's official platform data, its total transaction volume currently exceeds $3.9 billion, with total revenue of approximately $3.2 million, and platform points (Feather) earned around 21.54 million. The active liquidity assets are approximately $74.769 million, PayFi assets are about $67.547 million, and liquidity assets are around $7.217 million. According to Dune data, Huma's platform average annual yield is about 14.3%, even higher than the stable yield rate of 10.5% provided on the official website. The number of depositors is approximately 15,000.
Additionally, regarding the annual income that users are most concerned about, according to Dune data, Huma's platform annual income has been gradually increasing since October last year, with the annual income in March 2025 reaching $8.536 million. The newly launched Huma 2.0, which has been online for less than a week, has already accumulated deposits exceeding $12.21 million.
According to previous media information, Huma uses blockchain technology to provide payment financing (or "on-demand liquidity") for remittances, digital asset-backed credit cards, trade finance, global payments T+0 solutions, and DePIN financing, aiming to solve inefficiencies in traditional financial systems. This business is mainly conducted through Arf, with a cumulative credit line of $1.992 billion as of April 15, total repayment amount of approximately $1.95 billion, and a capital turnover multiple of about 4.31.
According to official institutional information, Huma currently has 3 liquidity pools mainly used for cross-border payment financing activities, all of which are full, with yields above 11.5%.
In the DePIN financing aspect, Huma previously collaborated with Roam to launch a Roam router loan purchase plan, where users pay 30% upfront, with the remaining funds provided by Huma as a loan. Users will repay the loan through subsequent airdrops and mining rewards, and after the loan is cleared, the device's earnings belong to the user.
In January 2025, according to third-party sources, Huma plans to launch the HUMA token on the Jupiter LFG Launchpad, with the expected voting release time in May.
After introducing the project, for ordinary users, the current participation method is mainly through depositing to earn platform yield returns and Feather point rewards. To maximize the latter, users can choose the Maxi mode in Huma 2.0; to balance both, they can choose the Classic mode.
The more pressing question is whether Huma poses the risk of collapse similar to traditional P2P internet projects?
Does Huma Have P2P Collapse Risk? Yes, but Not Entirely
Based on the PayFi strategy memorandum provided by Huma, the platform has proactively disclosed a series of risk factors, including:
- Credit and default risks
- PayFi product liquidity risks
- Fraud and misrepresentation risks
- Concentration risks
- Collateral execution risks
- Pre-financing execution risks
- Regulatory and legal risks
- Macroeconomic and market risks
- Operational, technical, and blockchain-related risks
Additionally, Huma has made specific time and amount restrictions on the user redemption process.
With such a clear and specific attitude towards risks, does Huma really have a collapse risk? Currently, the possibility seems low. The main reasons are:
- From the existing business model, Huma's approach is more focused on connecting enterprises and institutional investors and their fund liquidity, while opening up token-incentivized deposits without KYC/KYB requirements.
- From its underlying assets and risk control mechanisms, Huma uses RWA assets (such as cash-collateralized bonds issued by Arf Capital) instead of high-risk P2P unsecured personal loans for business settlement. The layered structure of Arf's liquidity pool and the platform's mechanism of covering first losses reduce the default risk of fund lending, with more flexible liquidity management (lock-up periods are on-demand or 3/6 months).
- From the platform's specific functionality, Huma's PayFi network indeed has P2P elements, as it primarily connects borrowers and investors through blockchain networks, providing financing based on future income or accounts receivable. However, its focus is on payment financing and RWA tokenization, involving institutional capital and complex financial structures (such as SPV tokenization, structured financing), which differs significantly from the traditional P2P lending person-to-person model.
- From credit endorsement and investment institutions, Huma is supported by a series of well-known investment institutions and financial institutions like Distributed Global and Hashkey, which indirectly reduces the project's potential for fraud. It's worth noting that Huma has not launched platform services in some countries and regions (such as crypto-sensitive areas like China and the US).
Therefore, at this stage, Huma is more like a hybrid business model - it has certain P2P business characteristics but primarily generates real yield by providing cross-border payment financing, and on this basis, is expanding its PayFi territory in the Solana ecosystem, introducing partners like Jupiter, Kamino, and RateX to explore the DeFi ecosystem's potential.
Moving forward, users should focus on the following key points:
- Follow Arf liquidity pool operation status: https://institutional.huma.finance/
- Follow Huma Dune dashboard related liquidity changes: https://dune.com/huma-finance/huma-overview
- Follow Huma's official further explanation on revenue source transparency - Huma Co-founder Richard Liu: https://x.com/DrPayFi
In the short term, Huma has achieved high annualized yields and protocol revenue through short turnover cycles and efficient liquidity, and is expected to achieve the goal of $10 billion in transaction volume this year by leveraging Arf, a cross-border payment platform; in the long term, it still depends on whether Huma can obtain stable returns in stablecoin settlement cards, trade finance, DEPIN project financing, and RWA asset tokenization.
