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Lendoit is a service that provides the ability to conduct cross-border peer-to-peer loans, by harnessing blockchain technology and one of its strongest features, smart contracts. The product is built on top of a few layers of different contracts which we will describe more thoroughly after this introduction.
With an existing working alpha product, Lendoit claims to be the first true peer-to-peer lending platform, due to the fact that other platforms still rely on intermediaries such as banks, trust accounts, and other factors. Lendoit’s prime edge might also be the fact it does not require any collateral in order for a borrower to take a loan, which is different to any other existing platform out there.
Lending Marketplaces
Before we begin presenting some facts, let’s make sure we are all aligned on what lending marketplaces are.
Lending marketplaces are online platforms which allow people or organizations to lend money to borrowers. Unlike banks, these platforms do not hold or loan funds, they only act as the agent that facilitates the process. Their revenue model is based on fees and commissions received by all the involved players. As this method gets rid of exploitative organizations such as banks, the lending process occurs much more quickly and it usually gives fairer interest rates. Both lenders and borrowers can enjoy a variety of offers, with different interest rates and conditions, and can also divert their activities amongst several lenders/borrowers. Each platform has its own scoring system which determines the quality of a given borrower.
The Opportunity
The project’s whitepaper reveals some facts about the world of lending marketplaces. This trend started in 2005 and since then a vast number of marketplaces have been established in many different countries worldwide.
It is cited, that “According to Morgan Stanley, the market for Global Marketplace Lending may reach $290bn. by 2020, with an expected Compound Annual Growth Rate of 51% from 2014 to 2020.” The team is trying to show the size and potential of this market, in order to explain that their truly innovative peer-to-peer solution holds great potential.
One of the main gaps Lendoit is trying to close is the difference in interest rates in different countries. Lenders in countries with low-interest rates cannot earn enough money from providing loans, while borrowers from tough countries that have high-interest rates are suffering from harsh loan conditions. In addition, as with many blockchain solutions, the lack of transparency of the currently involved intermediaries, is also a factor that Lendoit wishes to eliminate.
In Lendoit’s eyes, there is a misconception about new technologies and claims that the main beneficiaries for them are more established and competitive industries, rather than new uses which try to re-invent the wheel. I tend to agree.
Lendoit’s Solution
The solution the company proudly offers is for being trusted, fast and easy to use. The platform utilizes the advantages of smart contracts and blockchain technology to automate all of the process flows for money lending.
The lending ecosystem at Lendoit’s marketplace consists of borrowers, lenders, collectors, and score providers.
Borrowers are required to go through a quick application process (which is basically a KYC process that includes some other questions) before they can begin using the system. After a borrower submits his request, a tender (which is the process of raising funds for a loan in this case) begins.
An example of the bidding structure is where a reverse auction occurs, meaning that the bidders are the loaners and the winners are those who gave the lowest interest rates. The tender serves as a mean for getting the best offers in the shortest time.
In cases where a borrower fails to pay his debt (this can be the loan itself or the interest portion of it), collectors can buy the debt from a lender and minimize his losses. Collectors are authorized entities within specific countries, which have the ability to legally act against borrowers.
Upon a borrower’s registration, score providers (can be two different ones) are used for either giving a score to a loaner after he applies for the service or to provide verification services for identities.
The system uses a variety of smart contracts in order to operate and automate the various processes:
- Smart Loan Contract
Contains the borrower’s details including its score, holds the loan’s conditions, runs the lending tender, acts as a trusted intermediary which holds and releases the funds for the borrower, updates a Smart Reputation Contract, transfers funds to a Smart Compensation Contract (and receives funds from it when there’s a default*), interacts with a Smart Conversion Contract, changes the ownership of a loan and initiates a collectors’ tender in case of a defaulted loan
* A default, is a term that refers to cases where a loan’s debt was not paid on time. - Smart Reputation Contract
Equivalent to a credit score, acts as the global score of an Ethereum address and can be utilized for other purposes rather than credit transactions.
This contract gets updated when a lender lends money and the borrower pays their debt or fails to repay the loan. - Smart Compensation Fund Contract
This contract helps lenders to cover their losses in case a borrower defaults on a loan.
On each lending process, the Smart Loan Contract will send a portion of the load to the Smart Compensation Fund Contract. In a case where a loan default has occurred, the lender will recover a part of the losses through the Smart Loan Contract. - Smart Conversion Contract
In charge of converting currencies, especially when it comes to paying the interest in the form of the system’s token (LOAN Token).
Lendoit also offers a secondary market, for lenders to trade loans. This tool allows lenders to liquidate their funds at any moment.
We have spoken with Ram Avissar, an advisor at Lendoit, to hear about the company’s future plans for using their token. He explained to us that “future features can actually be everything as Lendoit is only providing the infrastructure for the lending platform where there can be a lot of cool new integrations that will help you hedge the borrowed amount, create secondary markets for loans given, anonymity and many more integrations”
Competition
As there are many non-blockchain and crypto related lending marketplaces, we will be focusing only on the more direct competition. The project’s whitepaper provides some information on the following direct competitors:
ETHLend
Similarly to Lendoit, ETHLend is a decentralized peer-to-peer lending platform which uses smart contracts and reputation. However, it doesn’t use a compensation fund to protect lenders. The platform uses ERC-20 tokens or Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains as collaterals for receiving a loan.
BTCPOP
An example of a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency lending market which does not use smart contracts. It is based on reputation, rather than on credit score. The platform offers to get funding for projects from BTCPOP’s community, transforming its members into investors in future ventures. It also allows exchanging combinations of pairs for Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin.
A really interesting feature that they have is Proof-of-Stake pools, which are similar to Proof-of-Work mining pools, but work on staking coins instead of providing computing power, usually by letting GPUs to do the work.
SALT
I could not summarize SALT’s platform better than Lendoit, so I’ll just cite them: “Centralized fiat currencies loan platform for loan amounts higher than $5000. It uses the Smart Contract only for
depositing cryptocurrency as collateral. Their target market is borrowers with cryptocurrencies who do not want to liquidate their cryptocurrency into fiat currencies. Only accredited investors and qualified financial institutions can become lenders on the SALT.”
Additional competitors which weren’t mentioned in the whitepaper:
Dharma
Dharma is a protocol for decentralized issuance, origination, risk-assessment and peer-to-peer loans on blockchains which support the concept of smart contracts. It is a protocol, rather than a platform, but it is worth mentioning. The developers of this protocol are currently not issuing a token and do not charge any fee for using their protocol. This tool could provide new projects to professionally compete with Lendoit.
Onix
Onix is another decentralized peer-to-peer exchange. It uses Proof-of-Work mining for its operation. The project is still young, and from examining its materials, it looks as if no ICO is scheduled.
Team and Advisory Board
The team for this project is made up of many people. Among the founders are Ori Erez, the CEO and Vlad Amirov, who, together, bring vast experience in Fintech and trading systems.
Additional founders are Yoav Pinkas, the COO, who brings experience with databases and Avi Ben David, president, an entrepreneur with decades of experience in financial markets.
Among the advisory board of Lendoit are some very familiar cryptocurrency industry faces with the likes of Michael Terpin the founder of BitAngels, CoinAgenda and Transform Group, Eddy Travia from Coinsilium, Richard Titus, Ram Avissar and others.
Roadmap
Below is the project’s roadmap, starting with the token sale and generation in December 2017, through a beta in the first quarter of 2018 to a first production release version on the third quarter of 2018.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Fair dynamic token value calculation according to BTC and ETH exchange rates.
- Detailed plan for handling various players within the lending market including smart contracts for various purposes.
- The service will hold an internal exchange for its tokens and other currencies.
Cons
- Future regulation might harm the business model of companies such as Lendoit.
- Lendoit is playing in a very competitive market which requires strong competitive advantages in order to succeed.
- Though Lendoit has already sealed agreements in many countries in Europe and South America, making this product as global as Lendoit wishes to, requires collaboration with collectors from various countries for wider expansion.
In Conclusion
Lendoit’s platform offers a solution to the major problem of cross-border loans. It utilizes the power of blockchain technology in order to facilitate this process in a decentralized manner, which makes the whole process faster, simpler, cheaper and more efficient.
ICO Details and more info
Date: December 13th, 2017
Token name: LOAN
Token price: the price of the token during the crowd sale period will be determined according to the exchange rate of Bitcoin and Ether. The following calculation will be used: (hard cap in USD / tokens offered in public sale) / ETH or BTC price in USD (depends on the currency chosen for payment)
In numbers the calculation is as follows, (25,000,000 / 600,000,000) / (ETH or BTC / USD)
Total supply: approximately 1,000,000,000 LOAN tokens
Hard cap: $25,000,000
Below are the details for the allocation of funds and LOAN tokens distribution.
The post Lendoit – a decentralized p2p lending marketplace appeared first on CryptoPotato.
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