Lark: Expanding access to exclusive investment deals

Goldfinch community launched lark.market to enable open trading of Borrower Pool positions

Access the yields of fixed-term lending by buying positions in exclusive, closed Goldfinch Borrower Pool deals, while existing Investors can sell positions to unlock early liquidity

• Announcing Lark: an independent, on-chain secondary marketplace for users to buy and sell the Backer PoolToken NFTs that represent underlying investment positions in Goldfinch Borrower Pools.
• Because investing as a Backer is such an attractive opportunity, Borrower Pools frequently close for investment in as little as 2 hours. At the same time, the Pool’s Backers must be willing to commit capital for the full 2–4 years that the Pool’s loan term is for.

Now, using lark.market, new Investors can buy positions in attractive Pools that are no longer open for investment, while Backers can list their position for sale if they need to access liquidity early.

Today, I’m thrilled to announce that the Goldfinch community has launched Lark: an independent, on-chain secondary marketplace for users to buy and sell the Backer PoolToken NFTs that represent underlying investment positions in Goldfinch Borrower Pools.

I’m a member of the Goldfinch community, and I put forward the governance proposal for the community to build this marketplace. I’m excited to share why the community decided to build Lark, how it works, and how new and existing Investors can use it today.

Investing in previously exclusive deals

Goldfinch is a decentralized global credit protocol that harnesses sustainable USDC APYs from businesses creating real value in the world — established credit funds and fintechs in emerging markets. Backers on Goldfinch evaluate individual investment deals, and supply USDC directly to attractive Borrowers across a global reach of high-return markets previously only accessible to institutional insiders.

How does this work? You can learn more about how Goldfinch works in the protocol overview, but, at a high level:

• Borrowers are participants who seek financing from Goldfinch, and they propose Borrower Pools to be assessed by the network. Borrower Pools are smart contracts that contain the terms a Borrower seeks for their loan, including how much they want to raise in funding, the interest rate, and the repayment schedule.
• Backers assess individual Borrower Pools, decide whether to invest in them directly with first-loss capital, and earn the protocol’s highest yields for doing so (Backer funding is paired with automatically allocated funding from the Senior Pool — you can learn about how that works here).
• When the Pool has been funded it closes for further investment, and the Borrower will repay interest and principal to the Pool until the loan term is completed, currently 2–4 years for most Pools on the platform.
• Backers earn an average USDC yield of 17.2%* for supplying this capital — a combination of the interest paid by Borrowers and reallocated interest from the Senior Pool to reward Backers for the work they do evaluating deals — plus additional GFI rewards.

Get involved

It’s easy to get started buying or listing positions on Lark — a fully decentralized on-chain NFT marketplace, built on the Reservoir platform.

When Backers invest in a Borrower Pool they automatically receive a PoolToken NFT representing their underlying position. The PoolToken NFT tracks the amount that was supplied and how much of it has been redeemed. At any time, a Backer can use their NFT to redeem their specific portion of the available repayments in the Pool.

To list a Backer Position on Lark, all you have to do is to connect the wallet you used to invest on Goldfinch to lark.market, click on your NFT to view it, select “List now,” and follow the on-screen prompts to choose your listing price and sign your transaction.

Buying a position is even easier–simply select the NFT that you want to purchase, click “Buy now,” and follow the on-screen prompts.

While anyone can buy a PoolToken NFT on lark.market, it’s important to note that you must have a qualified UID on the Goldfinch platform in order to be able to claim your position’s interest and repayments. The NFT’s traits list out what kind of UID that NFT requires, and you can learn who can register one of those UIDs here. Most Pools are only open to non-US individuals, entities, or US Accredited Investors.

If you need help using Lark or have questions about the marketplace, you can always reach out to the Goldfinch community managers for support in the Goldfinch Discord.

Community-driven

Goldfinch is a decentralized, community-driven and community-managed protocol. Governance is managed by the community DAO, and anyone can participate in governance to improve the Goldfinch protocol by making proposals, discussing them, and participating in Snapshot votes.

You can learn more about how Goldfinch’s governance process works here, or the proposals in the governance forum. The Goldfinch community is always open for support and conversation in the Goldfinch Discord.

Want to learn more about Goldfinch and what our community is building? Visit goldfinch.finance, follow @goldfinch_fi on Twitter, or sign up for weekly community updates.

*As of 9.15.22