The only zkSync Airdrop Guide you’ll ever need, a 6 Part Guide. Part 3— Borrowing & Lending.
This is the third part of a very long and comprehensive tutorial on how to farm the zkSync Airdrop.
If you have just come across this article then please read the previous article in the series:
Now assuming you have read and acted on these, we will now move onto the next part — Borrowing & Lending.
Before you start thinking “Wait, Trails! Isn’t Lending and Borrowing a part of DEFI?!” (and you would be correct) the second part of the series was already massive and adding Borrowing & Lending to the bottom may have got lost in the article so I have pulled it out separately in order to give it a proper focus.
Borrowing & Lending
Borrowing & Lending on zkSync should be fairly self-explanatory. But I’ll cover a very simple overview to get you started.
You can borrow Crypto using your own Crypto in your wallet as collateral and you can lend your Crypto out for a APR reward.
This article won’t go too much into the detail into the inner workings of these protocols as we are really most interested in obtaining the transactions and volume from using the platforms to help us farm zkSync.
The key thing about lending and borrowing crypto is it’s actually very similar to how a credit union loan works — you can only borrow a % against the funds you have in your account.
Through this process you can essentially become your own bank issuing yourself a loan when you need funds and paying back over a time that suits you.
In Crypto, both Lenders and Borrowers can earn a reward, with lenders earning an APR by depositing funds into the platform that then pay interest on the amount deposited. From these deposits the platform can then lend out funds to borrowers.
Borrowers can then take out loans on the platform using their own funds as collaterol. You cannot just take out a loan with nothing to back it up.
In the Crypto world you can essentially become your own bank!
Borrowing & Lending Dapps on zkSync
On zkSync there are 3 main defi protocols that focus on borrowing & lending:
- Eralend — app.eralend.com
🪂 Airdrop related actions:
- Borrowing
- Lending
✔ Token Opportunity:
- Currently tokenless! Stellar token planned.
💬 Socials: Website — Twitter — Discord
EraLend allows you to lend or borrow ETH or USDC.
If you are worried about the risk of sharp drops in token price causing you to get liquidated then USDC may be a better option (not financial advice of course!). However its not unheard of for a stablecoin to depeg so it’s up to you and your risk profile.
When you land on the site you should be presented with a screen like this, simply connect your wallet and navigate to the bottom section of the page:
Whether you choose ETH or USDC is entirely up to you, however for the purpose of this article I’ll use ETH just because I have some already in my wallet. Also that Supply APR at 0.11% is just too good to miss, right!!? 💀
To start the process click on the blue “Manage” button against your choice of token.
This will then show a popup where we can you can Supply, Withdraw, Borrow or Repay the loan.
Click on the Supply tab as we going to deposit some funds to start with.
Next enter the amount of ETH or USDC you wish to deposit, and as you wish to borrow against this deposit you will need to click the Use as Collateral option. This will trigger a wallet transaction.
If you don’t select the Use as Collateral you will just deposit your funds and earn the basic 0.11% APR. Your funds won’t be used in any other way.
For the purposes of this tutorial I’m supplying 0.0175 ETH (roughly $50) to the platform as can be seen from the screen shot above.
Once you have clicked the Supply button it will then ask you to confirm your transaction.
As the speed of the transaction is not critical here if you are using Metamask you can edit the gas fee from the Market setting to the Low setting to save yourself a little bit of money as well.
Once the transaction is executed you will see the “All done!” message appear, which will confirm how much you have supplied and any gas fees that you saved.
Click the OK, Close! button.
We have now registered a unique transaction on the zksync network for the Eralend platform!
As I have deposited my funds I’m going to borrow some ETH against it. What will I do with that borrowed ETH? Deposit into the next lending protocol off course!
Once the deposit has been confirmed it will return you to the homepage where you now see the supplied funds, your borrowings and the net APR you are earning.
What is also now visible on the dashboard is your Borrow Limit — which not surprisingly is the amount you can borrow against your deposit.
I have deposited $50 worth of ETH and I can borrow up to a maximum of $36.79 back.
To borrow against my $50 (and get a second unique transaction on zksync) I click on the blue Manage button that I clicked before to open up the Supply & Borrow Popup.
Click on the Borrow tab and enter up an amount up to your Borrow Limit. There is a SAFE MAX feature that will add in an amount that keeps you in a safe range and unlimikely to have to liquidate unless and exceptional event happens.
In my case my SAFE MAX borrow amount is $29.42 (approx. 58%) so I’ll use that figure to borrow.
Once you have set your borrow amount click on the blue Borrow button and confirm your transaction.
Once completed you’ll see the All done! confirmation box again.
You’ll get taken back to the homepage where you can now see the funds you have supplied and borrowed, your net APR and your Liquidation Risk. Your net APR is the blend of your borrowing APR and your deposit APR. In my case I actually earn a net income from this position of 1.075% APR.
From supplying and borrowing I generated an additional 2 unique transactions (as borrowing and lending are 2 separate smart contracts). In addition, with my $50 deposit and $30 borrow I added $80 to my volume on zkSync.
As an additional benefit EraLend offers a loyalty scheme called “EraLend Stellar Programme” where you can earn points that are then exchanged for Stellar at the Token Generate Event (TGE) planned at some point in the future.
You can receive points for supplying and borrowing amounts over time. For more information check out:
To be eligible for the Stellar Progamme you need to supply at least $50 and borrow at least $30 and keep those positions in place for at least 3 days.
Now you have a choice here:
- Repay your loan immediately, free up the funds to put into the next lending platform.
- Wait a few days, earn some points on EraLend Loyalty programme, then pay back your loan and withdrawing all your funds.
- Leave the funds deposited in the platform indefinitely thereby maximising your position for the EraLend airdrop. Then use the money you have borrowed from EraLend to invest in the next platform.
The choice is totally yours. For me as I looking to maximise my airdrop opportunities, I’m going to leave my funds in EraLend and use what I have borrowed to invest into the next platform.
2. Zerolend — https://app.zerolend.xyz
🪂 Airdrop related actions:
- Borrowing
- Lending
✔ Token Opportunity:
- Currently tokenless! “Zero” token planned.
💬 Socials: Website — Twitter — Discord
Zerolend is the largest borrowing and lending dapp on zkSync with nearly $50m in deposits. As a comparison EraLend covered in the section above has just over $2m in deposits so Zerolend is the largest player by far.
Before we get into how to deposit and borrow on Zerolend one item to consider is that like Eralend, Zerolend has a loyalty scheme where your borrowing and Lending can earn you points also that can be swapped out for $ZERO tokens upon launch.
Once you supply over $100 into Zerolend you earn 1 point for every $1 invested each day. So if you invest $100 you will get 100 points per day.
If you borrow, then you get 4 points per $1 borrowed (no minimum borrow amount). As an example, if you were to deposit $100 and borrow $70 you would 100 points per day for the supplied funds and 280 points per day for the borrowed funds.
You can earn points for other activates too:
One benefit is referring people to the platform, if you use my referral link below you get an additional 20% bonus on your accrued points:
https://airdrop.zerolend.xyz/#/?invite=fv9Mbgk8hXNC
For total transparency I also get a 20% point bonus too — it doesn’t cost you anything and it helps support my article writing which I hope helps you too, so I’d be very grateful if you use the link above, but there is no pressure to do so.
Back to the zkSync airdrop opportunity, we want to interact with Zerolend to generate unique transactions and volume.
Go to the homepage (https://app.zerolend.xyz) you will see a list of around 6 tokens that you can supply and borrow against.
Each token shows the total supplied, the supply APR, the total borrowed, the variable borrow APR (for shorter term positions) and the stable borrow APR (for longer term positions).
Select the token you wish to supply and borrow against. In my case I’m going to select ETH as I have the funds I borrowed in Eralend that will use. Depending on which token you selected you should see a page like the following:
Select the Supply button to begin the deposit process. Once selected a pop up will appear where you can enter your deposit.
As I want to take advantage of the Zeroland points programme I’ll be depositing over $100 in ETH to earn my 100 points a day. You can enter what you are comfortable with of course.
Once you have added your deposit amount click on the Supply ETH button and confirm the transaction in your wallet.
Once the deposit has been completed you’ll see the following screen:
Click on the Add to Wallet button to add the z0Token to your wallet so you can see your token balance ongoing.
You can also gain special access to the Zerolend discord and you can join the Zerolend Zealy campaign, by joining their guild. Depending on how much you supply you can received special Shrimp, Shark or Whale roles in the Zerolend discord.
Once you have finished click on the Ok, Close button.
Now we are going to borrow fund against our deposit. I deposited $100 and with ETH I can borrow up to 80% against my deposit, so in my case that’s $80.
To borrow, just click on the Borrow button below:
Another pop up will appear and you can enter the amount you wish to borrow. The key is to keep your Health Factor at a decent level — anything over 3 is green and below 1.1 is red and anything in between is amber. The platform states if your health status falls below 1.0 your position will get liquidated so you want to ensure your borrowings match your risk appetite.
I’m going to aim for a Health Factor score of around 1.5 as this gives me a little buffer and I can borrow around 60% of my deposit which is $60 or more importantly 240 points from borrowing each day.
So select a borrowing amount that fits your risk profile and Approve and Confirm the transaction in your wallet.
I’m going to leave my funds in for a few weeks and let those points really rack up in the hope it will put me in a decent position for any upcoming Zerolend airdrop.
Just something to consider but not financial advice. It’s just what I am doing.
Now that we have deposited and borrowed on Zerolend we have generated 2 unique transactions on zkSync and a further $160 in volume, making in total 4 unique transactions and $240 in volume so far.
3. Basilisk — https://app.basilisk.org/
🪂 Airdrop related actions:
- Borrowing
- Lending
❌ Has existing “$BLSK” token
💬 Socials: Website — Twitter — Discord
The smallest of the 3 lending and borrowing protocols on zkSync, Basilisk is the only one with a token as yet, BLSK. It has total deposits of $0.5m so is pretty small.
Given its size and that it already has a token I’m not going to lock up any funds and just use it to generate the zksync transactions and volume. However, as Basilisk has an opportunity to earn BLSK tokens through lending and borrowing over time it may be of interest to you, I’m just not going to do it.
On Basilisk, like Eralend you can borrow and lend either ETH or USDC. I’m going to lend USDC just to change things up.
Click on the ETH or USD options like below:
Once selected a pop up will appear for you to enter how much you are going to deposit.
I’m depositing 100 USDC (remember to select the use as collateral option or you wont be able to borrow against it). You’ll have to approve and confirm the transaction in your wallet.
Now I have deposited my 100 USDC (and generated my 1 unique zksync transaction) I can borrow against it.
I’m going to borrow just 60 USDC.
So enter the borrow amount and click Borrow USDC (or ETH if you deposited that token). Then confirm in your wallet.
Once completed congrats that’s the second unique transaction that you have now generated using Basilisk.
I don’t want to keep my funds in Basilisk so I’m now going to repay my loan and withdraw my funds. To do this click on the token you deposited and borrowed, which in my case was USDC:
Select the Repay Tab and enter the amount you have to repay:
You’ll need to approve the transaction and the click Repay USDC or Repay ETH button and confirm in your wallet.
Once completed click on the Withdraw tab to withdraw your funds from the Basilisk platform.
That’s it, you have interacted with 3 borrowing and lending platforms, generated at least 7 transactions and in my case have generated $400 in volume towards the zkSync airdrop opportunity.
On top of that, we have also put ourselves in contention for further rewards from both Eralend and Zerolend platforms, so a double dip so to speak! If and when these platforms launch their reward you can simply pull out your funds and reapply them to another airdrop opportunity so there is no sunk except that of gas fees.
In Part 4 of the zkSync airdrop series we will at how games can drive up your zkSync numbers rapidly over time.
Part 4 will be published soon so if you want to get an email notification once the new part is released simply subscribe to receive the latest instalments.
So that’s it — an entire zkSync lending and borrowing review for you to follow and work through to not only improve your zkSync standing for any possible airdrop, but maximise your position for rewards from these lending and borrowing platforms!
Thanks for reading and I hope it was useful, feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments.
Thank you for your time, if this article was helpful please give it some claps and/or share it with others so they can successfully get involved with the zkSync airdrop opportunity!
Socials:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/trialsincrypto
Airdrop Hunters Discord: https://discord.gg/Gz8r8mSP
