Today we have the chance to meet MrDerber, CEO & Co-Founder of Lendz, an aggregator of NFT lending platforms. Lendz helps traders get instant liquidity from their NFTs on the best possible terms. Together, we will discuss what Lendz is about, how the team came up with the idea, how the protocol makes money, what is the long-term vision, and many more! Let’s dive right in!
[SurferInvestor] Could you please summarise briefly what Lendz is about?
[MrDerber] In case you’re a trader, most likely you faced problems of having illiquid NFTs in your wallet and a lack of liquidity. Lendz allows you to find FAST the BEST loans you can get with your NFTs.
- Using Lendz – you will never run into a lack of liquidity
- With Lendz you will always get the best possible loan as Lendz aggregates all the top NFT lending platforms
[SurferInvestor] Could you please introduce the founding team? What is their background and what makes them the right team to run Lendz
[MrDerber] The entire founding team met at the top technical university in their country. Later, they all became insanely interested in NFT technology and gained experience in a number of crypto and NFT infrastructure projects, including their own.
[MrDerber] The key to the success of the founding team is their entrepreneurial spirit and diversity, which makes it possible to build a successful product and close all aspects of product development.
[SurferInvestor] How did the idea of Lendz come to life?
[MrDerber] One of the team members was trading NFTs and faced the problem of lack of liquidity. Of course, there was always the opportunity to sell his blue chips in order to trade, but he really didn’t want to do this.
[MrDerber] He looked for other liquidity opportunities and learned that he could get a loan using his NFT as collateral. At that time, there were already lending platforms on the market such as NFTfi, Arcade, X2Y2, and bendDAO, where it was possible to get an NFT loan. On all of these platforms, there were different loan terms and it was very difficult to understand their UIs. As a result, he had to spend a lot of time manually searching for the best offers and comparing them on these platforms.
[MrDerber] Having felt this pain, we decided to make a product that would solve it for us and for the rest of the community of crypto traders.
[SurferInvestor] What item in the roadmap gets you the most excited?
[MrDerber] Currently there are 2 things that make us very excited!
- The 1st is Lendz’s core feature – NFT loan aggregation. There are already almost ALL NFT loan offers on Lendz, so our users can be sure that they’ll find the one that’ll suit them best.
- The 2nd – is borrowing directly on Lendz UI, but using partners’ smart contracts.
[SurferInvestor] Can a user get liquidated if the price of his NFT drops too much?
[MrDerber] Lendz is an aggregator, so traders can’t be liquidated directly there. But traders can be liquidated on one of the partner’s lending platforms.
[MrDerber] Basically, there are two types of NFT loans: peer2peer and peer2pool. When you issue a peer2peer loan, then you can’t be liquidated as long as you repay on time. Whereas on some peer2pool lending platforms, you can be liquidated if the NFT floor price drops. On the other hand, there are peer2pool platforms where you also can’t be liquidated in case of an NFT floor price drop, for example on Zharta that we’ve recently added on Lendz.
[SurferInvestor] How is Lendz making money? Is it through a referral fee if the offer is accepted?
[MrDerber] Lendz arranging agreements with Lenders and Lending platforms for referral fees. But for Lendz users we’re definitely going to provide core functionality for free.
[SurferInvestor] How many people are on the team?
[MrDerber] There are 6 of us.
[SurferInvestor] In an ideal world, how would Lendz look in 5 years?
[MrDerber] In 5 years Lendz is going to be the 1st place where traders will go to get a loan with their NFTs.
[SurferInvestor] For people who wanna jump in, how to get started?
[MrDerber] Your readers can follow the below-mentioned links if they want to get in touch with Lendz!
- Just try Lendz out and find the BEST loans for your NFTs: https://lendz.loan/
- Join Discord to ask questions and request features: https://discord.gg/3NtXuqBRAw
- Follow us on Twitter to stay updated: https://twitter.com/0xLendz
We would like to thank MrDerber for his time answering our questions. It was really interesting to learn about how NFT lending aggregator works, and what is the long-term vision behind Lendz. We wish them to become the go-to place for NFT traders who need liquidity against their NFT. We look forward to seeing what’s in store for Lendz in the next years and wish them all the best for their journey!
