Goldfinch crosses $100M in active loans following expansion of qualified participants
On the heels of expanding rewards, opening access to accredited investors, and adding support for Curve LP staking, protocol passes milestone in real-world lending
Goldfinch, the global credit protocol bringing off-chain private credit on-chain, passed $100MM USDC in active loans distributed in emerging markets on April 26, 2022. The benchmark represents a 100X increase in active loans from just a year prior for the 16-month-old protocol.
The protocol met this milestone just after expanding access for U.S. accredited investors (individuals + entities) and non-U.S. entities to participate as lenders, broadening the community of those who can earn off-chain yields on their stablecoin deposits beyond the protocol’s initial launch segment of non-U.S. individuals.
Just a few days later, Goldfinch implemented the upgrade allowing FIDU-USDC Curve LP positions to be staked for liquidity mining rewards on the protocol, following a successful community governance proposal to do so. FIDU-USDC LPs can now use the platform for staking their Curve LP positions and migrating staked FIDU.
The benchmark also follows the recent launch of full Backer Rewards on the protocol, a community-driven expansion of staking rewards that maintain risk/reward protocol dynamics for lenders without consuming additional tokens from Goldfinch’s treasury.
“The fact that Goldfinch is serving so many borrowers across so many countries means it really works. These are some of the most regulated institutions in the world. If crypto can work for them, it can work for the broader global economy. That’s why $100M is an early indicator of a much bigger wave. More than a Goldfinch milestone, I’m celebrating an early glimmer of crypto truly, finally bridging to real-world productive impact.”
—Mike Sall, Co-Founder Warbler Labs
These steps to implement the protocol’s roadmap come on the heels of a $25M funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz earlier this year, with additional investments from Coinbase Ventures, SV Angel, Blocktower, Bill Ackman and Heli-cap.
The raise is seen as a harbinger of the industry’s shift to furthering DeFi as a solution for financial expansion in emerging markets — as TechCrunch noted in their coverage of the raise, meeting a desire in fintech “to tap opportunities in developing nations, where existing centralized financial systems have struggled to meet the needs of their users.”
Goldfinch’s loans, which are collateralized by real-world assets rather than cryptocurrencies, are spread across 20+ nations including Brazil, India, Kenya, and Mexico. The protocol receives its capital and assesses risk via a decentralized network of lenders worldwide.
Because Goldfinch’s loans are not tied to demand within crypto, the rates available to lenders on the protocol stand out from those typically seen in DeFi, such as the returns generated from yield farming or early participation incentives from finite reserves.
Instead, Goldfinch generates its yields from productive, off-chain business activity in growing markets, like manufacturing and distributing efficient cookstoves in India, providing financing to a groundbreaking debt fund in Latin America offering small business loans, or a carbon-neutral investment pool focused on carbon reduction projects and inclusive lenders in India, Egypt, Indonesia, Colombia, Spain, and the Philippines.
“$100MM of active loans is an absolutely huge milestone for the Goldfinch community, and also for DeFi’s growth. These are real businesses, not DeFi money games. This is bringing on net-new businesses and users to crypto.”
—Blake West, Co-Founder Warbler Labs
To learn more about the market implications of Goldfinch’s success connecting DeFi lenders to real-world businesses, read The Defiant’s coverage on how the $100M milestone comes as the “crypto-to-real world model picks up steam.”
Learn more about how Goldfinch works at goldfinch.finance and by signing up for protocol news. Get started participating in Goldfinch as a lender today at http://app.goldfinch.finance/verify.
Warbler Labs is a core development team focused on supporting the Goldfinch community and protocol development. If you want to help build Goldfinch, check out Warbler Labs’ job listings.
