Leveraged cross-chain lending protocol Nolus has announced a major platform upgrade that’s introduced several new features and improvements. Chief among them is support for volatile base currencies such as BTC and ETH. While relatively stable in crypto terms, these assets have more inherent volatility than the stablecoins that power most lending activity.
More Currencies, More Choice
The forthcoming Nolus upgrade will give users more options both as borrowers and lenders. The introduction of support for assets such as BTC and ETH provides opportunities for creating long or short positions, since the assets can be used for borrowing or lending. As an additional benefit, the yield available to users who provide liquidity to these pools is expected to be higher, providing an additional earning opportunity.
Nolus is best known for its leveraged lending that allows users to increase yield without increasing risk. A partial liquidation engine protects against full collateral loss, while the use of leverage serves as a multiplier on attainable yields.
Nolus has announced that it will phase its volatile markets in gradually through the remainder of the year and refine them based on user feedback. In recent months, Nolus has raised fresh capital from the likes of Interop Ventures, totaling $3.5M including a previous seed round. The slow and steady approach Nolus has taken to growing TVL and onboarding users, prioritizing security and stability, has been paying dividends.
More than $60M in volume has been safely traded on Nolus to date, whose TVL stands at around $1.8M. This incorporates 28 assets across the three chains Nolus supports. Through connecting to liquidity hubs such as Osmosis and Astroport, Nolus enables users to efficiently access the assets they require.
Chasing DeFi Sustainable Yield
As unsustainable DeFi yields have tapered off, onchain users have sought more sustainable sources for growing their crypto assets. Liquid staking and restaking, now a $40B sector, has proven one such source, providing steady returns of upwards of 5%, while there are also opportunities emerging in the growing tokenized RWA sector.
Nolus has taken a different approach, with its leveraged lending solution enabling APRs of 8-15%. After locking up a crypto asset as collateral, the users can borrow up to 150% of the value in the token of their choice. Built using the Cosmos SDK, Nolus Protocol runs on fast infrastructure that has negligible transaction costs, further differentiating it from most DeFi protocols.
The ability for web3 users to be able to earn consistent yield, regardless of how the broader market is performing, is essential for the industry to grow and for use cases beyond mere speculation to flourish. It’s also desirable to attract broader institutional adoption. The rollout of support for assets such as BTC will enhance Nolus’ credentials while providing new ways for users to earn.