mx-lend-rs

Introduction

As the next stage in the evolution of DeFi, decentralized lending brings more opportunities. In contrast to decentralized exchanges, lending involves two parties: the borrower and the supplier. Suppliers deposit assets into a pool to earn interest. Borrowers can obtain an asset by placing other assets as collateral. For the borrowed asset, the borrower pays interest over time to the suppliers.

Lending Protocol enhanches the opportunities for DeFi participants to further grow the ecosystem:

1. Instead of staking tokens into liquidity mining pools, users can now lend their tokens. Therefore, users can now earn yield without the limitation of impermanent loss and not having to hold two tokens at a fixed ratio (as for liquidity pool).

2. Users can deposit their tokens as collateral to borrow other class of tokens.

These benefits are not risk-free. Borrowers have the risk of liquidation, when the borrowing balance exceeds the total collateral value. Suppliers have the risk of short fall, which happens when the liquidation does not recover sufficient obligation.

The main idea behind the lending/borrowing collateral in a p2p way is that of utilisation ratios. This means that contracts don’t need to hold state about rates, or enforce rates statically. It achieves this by computing the current borrow/deposit rate in a dynamic way, taking the relation between the particular pool’s reserves and the utilisation rate at that moment (amount of collateral borrowed).

Protocol Architecture

We propose a lending strategy based on algorithmic pool-based liquidity. The Lending Protocol supports multiple Liquidity Pools, which have their own state and a Lending Pool which acts as Router and Proxy for routing and executing transactions based on the transaction input. The addition of a new asset requires the deployment of another liquidity pool contract. The Lending Pool deploys and manages the Liquidity Pools as an owner.

The LendingPool Contract

Deposit

The deposit action is the simplest one and does not have any state check.

The flow is as follows:

1. The user calls deposit endpoint from the Lending Pool SC, which calls the deposit_asset endpoint from the Liquidity Pool;
2. The Liquidity Pool SC mints metaESDT tokens with an unique nonce. These have the same ticker as the token with an L appended in front (ABC -> LABC);
3. The Liquidity Pool SC creates a DepositPosition which contains the timestamp and the amount of tokens;
4. The Liquidity Pool SC updates the reservers (Reserves Storage Mapper).
5. The Liquidity Pool SC sends the MetaESDT tokens to the user directly.
6. The Liquidity Pool SC returns an EsdtTokenPayment with the MetaESDT freshly minted, its nonce and the amount which is the same as the deposited amount (1 TOKEN = 1 LTOKEN). The Lending Pool returns the same result to the user.

TL;DR: User sends TOKEN_A and receives LTOKEN_A.

Widthraw

This is the opposite of Deposit scenario.

The flow is as follows:

1. The user calls withdraw endpoint from the Lending Pool SC, which calls the withdraw endpoint from the Liquidity Pool;
2. The Liquidity Pool SC computes the witdrawal amount (capital deposited + accumulated interest);
3. The Liquidity Pool SC updates the reservers and the DepositPosition (the user may have withdraw only a part of the amount deposited)
4. The Liquidity Pool SC burns the MetaEsdt tokens sent by the user;
5. The Liquidity Pool SC send the original tokens directly to the user;

TL;DR: User sends LTOKEN_A and receives TOKEN_A.

Borrow

The flow is as follows:

1. The user calls borrow endpoint from the Lending Pool SC;
2. The Lending Pool SC gets the Liquidity Pool Address based on the asset_to_borrow parameters passed by the user;
3. The Lending Pool SC gets the LTV (Loan To Value), a value specific (different) for each token;
4. The Lending Pool SC calls the borrow endpoint from the Liquidity Pool SC;
5. The Liquidity Pool SC mints metaESDT tokens with an unique nonce. These have the same ticker as the borrwed token with an B appended in front (ABC -> BABC);
6. The Liquidity Pool SC computes the borrowable amount (*collateral value LTV) and creates a BorrowPosition with this particular borrow information.
7. The Liquidity Pool SC updates the reservers;
8. The Liquidity Pool SC performs 2 transactions: First transaction with the MetaEsdt tokens freshly minted, derived from the collateral (if the borrowed token is TOKEN_B, the minted token is BTOKEN_B). These tokens will be used to repay the debt.
9. The second transaction with the requested tokens (TOKEN_B).
10. The Liquidity Pool SC returns an EsdtTokenPayment with the MetaESDT freshly minted, its nonce and the amount which is the same as the borrowed amount (1 TOKEN = 1 BTOKEN). The Lending Pool returns the same result to the user.

TL;DR: User sends LTOKEN_A as collateral and receives BTOKEN_B (used for repay) and TOKEN_B (the token wanted to borrow).

Repay

Borrowers can repay tokens to the market up to the borrow balance. If partial repayment is made, the borrow balance may be non-zero, and continue to accrue debt. Repayment is a transfer of tokens from the borrower back to the token market.

The flow is as follows:

1. The user calls borrow endpoint from the Lending Pool SC. (This scenario requires multi token transfer);
2. The Lending Pool SC gets the Liquidity Pool Address based on the asset_to_repay parameters passed by the user;
3. The Lending Pool SC calls the repay endpoint from the Liquidity Pool SC;
4. The Lending Pool SC computes the accumulated debt. total_owed = borrowed_token_amount + accumulated_debt;
5. The Lending Pool SC sends back to user the extra tokens (extra_tokens = asset_payed - total_owed);
6. The Lending Pool SC computes the amount of tokens to send to user;
7. The Lending Pool SC update reserves (borrowed amount and LP asset amount);
8. The Lending Pool SC burns the borrowed tokens (minted at the borrow scenario);
9. The Lending Pool SC sends directly to user the collateral used for borrow.

TL;DR: User sends BTOKEN_B and TOKEN_B (initial borrowed amount + interest) and receives BTOKEN_A.

Add Collateral

A borrow position Health Factor fluctuates with the value of collateral. If the price of the collateral token decreases, the value of the collateral decreases and hence the the health factor decreases. This leads to the risk of liquidation (if health factors is lower than 1). Therefore, to increase the borrow's health factor, a borrower can add more collateral.

The flow is as follows:

1. The borrower calls addCollateral endpoint from Lending Pool SC. (This scenario requires multi token transfer). The tokens are the BTOKEN_B (received at borrow time) and LTOKEN_A (collateral token);
2. The Lending Pool SC calls the add_collateral endpoint from the Liquidity Pool SC;
3. The Liquidity Pool SC burns the old BTOKEN_B (with the initial nonce), and mints new BOTKEN_B with a new nonce and the updated value (old value + number of LTOKENS_A sent);
4. The Lending Pool SC updates the contract's reserves (number of LTOKENS_A deposited);
5. The Lending Pool SC sends to the borrower BTOKENS_B (with the new nonce and new quantity).

Liquidate

If a borrower’s borrowing balance exceeds their total collateral value, it means that the protocol is at risk of suffering a loss if the borrower defaults on repayment. We call this a shortfall event. In order to reduce this risk, the protocol provides a public liquidate function which can be called by any user.

Prerequisites for liquidation:

1. Borrower provided deposited 1000 EGLD and got 1000 LEGLD (earns interest on it);
2. Borrower provides 1000 LEGLD as collateral and gets 100.000 USDC and 100.000 BUSDC (that are debt bearing and are used to recover the 1000 LEGLD);
3. Borrow health is 1.4 (200$ * 1000 LEGLD * 0.7 / 100.000 USDC = 1.4). 0.7 is the liquidation_threshold.

The liquidations goes as follows:

1. Price of collateral drops to 140$. The BorrowHealth is now 140$ * 1000 LEGLD * 0.7 / 100.000 USDC = 0.98;
2. A liquidator can take advantage of this. Because the BorrowHealth is under 1 he can liquidate the position;
3. Liquidator calls the liquidate endpoint from the Lending Pool SC which calls the liquidate endpoint from the Liquidity Pool SC specific to the tokens he sent;
4. As the diagram shows, the liquidator sends 100.000 USDC to liquidate the BorrowPosition, so Lending Pool SC will forward the call to USDC Liquity Pool SC.
5. The Liquidity Pool SC computes the HealthFactor and verifies that it is under 1.
6. The Liquidity Pool SC removes the BorrowPosition. Each BorrowPosition is identified by a nonce and this is removed. This implies that the 100.000 BUSDC tokens from the Borrower are worthless from now on.
7. The Liquidity Pool SC sends back to the Liquidator part of the Borrower's position + a bonus. For example the liquidator will get 100.000 USDC / 140$ (EGLD_PRICE) = 714 LEGLD + 36 LEGLD (5% bonus) = 750 LEGLD.

Interest Rate Model

We use an interest rate model which is based on the pool’s capital utilisation, which we can call U. Liquidity risk materialises when utilisation is high, its becomes more problematic as U gets closer to 100%. To tailor the model to this constraint, the interest rate curve is split in two parts around an optimal utilisation rate Uoptimal. Before Uoptimal the slope is small, after it starts rising sharply.

For U >= Uoptimal, the interest rates rise, because the capital is scarce. For U < Uoptimal, the interest rates decrease, because the capital is plentiful.

The interest rate Rt formulas depending on the capital utilisation of the pool, where:

R0, Rslope1 and Rslope2 are predefined values.

The interest rate is applied only to the borrowed value, not to the entire debt.

Simulations

In this case we have a pool where the asset is a Stablecoin, which is not volatile, so the borrow rate increases slightly with utilisation. An optimal Utilisation Rate of 80% has been chosen, from which the rate increases sharply, as it provides enough safety in case of market downside.

For a more volatile asset the borrow rate follows the same pattern as in the case of BUSD, but a much lower optimal utilisation rate has been chosen, with a steeper slope, as this assets are more likely to become undercollateralized and put the protocol solvency at risk. Using a steeper slope once the Borrowed Amounts exceed the Optimal Rate ensures that loans are being repaid in time or, if not, liquidated before it becomes unhealthy for the pool’s reserves.

The simulations were run in a python environment using multiple timeframes and multiple borrows. In a real scenario, the curves are not going to be perfectly smooth as pictured above, as a pool’s reserves won’t follow a linear action.

Risk Parameters

Loan to Value (LTV) ratio defines the maximum amount of currency that can be borrowed with a specific collateral. It’s expressed in percentage: at LTV=75%, for every 1 EGLD worth of collateral, borrowers will be able to borrow 0.75 EGLD worth of the corresponding (different) currency. Once a borrow is taken, the LTV evolves with market conditions.

Liquidation Threshold is the percentage at which a position is defined as undercollateralised. For example, a Liquidation threshold of 80% means that if the value rises above 80% of the collateral, the position is undercollateralised and could be liquidated.

The delta between the Loan-To-Value and the Liquidation Threshold is a safety cushion for borrowers.