NFT
Non-fungible token (NFT) lending platform Astaria is publicly launched after a long closed beta period.
Co-founded by former decentralized finance protocol (DeFi) SushiSwap CTO Joseph Delong, the platform allows NFT holders to lease their assets to traders who may not be able to afford a blue-chip NFT all at once. With support for over 300,000 NFTs, Astaria seeks to pump liquidity into the larger Ethereum-based NFT ecosystem.
However, unlike other NFT lending platforms that work peer-to-peer with borrowers and lenders, Astaria uses a third party to facilitate its lending market, using NFT rating service Upshot to serve as the “strategist” which will help liquidity providers enter the market while helping borrowers lease their assets.
Justin Bram, CEO and co-founder of Astaria, told CoinDesk that peer-to-peer lending models are difficult to scale and that using a three-actor model makes the lending process much easier.
“There’s a kind of bidding and asking process that happens offline in Discord where users negotiate different rates for loans – it’s really cumbersome, you have to have capital and knowledge to lend and as a borrower, and you don’t really know what you get,” said Bram. “We’re extremely customer-friendly, we don’t force anyone into liquidation, you get firm terms, and you only get liquidated to pay – you don’t pay your debt when it’s due.”
To manage capital flow within the protocol, Astaria is releasing a pre-funded vault that will help Upshot monitor risk and reward options between borrowers and lenders.
Astaria took advantage of the bear market to build out its protocol before releasing it to the public. In June 2022, Astaria raised $8 million in seed funding to deliver a robust NFT loan infrastructure.
NFT lending has been on the rise since NFT marketplace Blur released its Blend lending platform in May. According to data from platform Dune Analytics, the marketplace has already lent 46,472 ETH, about $83.7 million.
Also see: Binance launches NFT lending feature
