Goldfinch
Crypto Overview
Protocol Overview
Goldfinch is a decentralized credit protocol that enables crypto borrowing without requiring crypto collateral. The protocol aims to bring crypto lending to the real world by allowing borrowers to receive loans based on their creditworthiness rather than overcollateralized crypto assets.
Intended Utility
The GFI token serves as the protocol's governance token, allowing holders to vote on protocol changes and participate in risk assessment. It's also used for staking to become a protocol validator and earning rewards for helping assess borrower creditworthiness.
Actual Utility Assessment
The protocol has demonstrated real-world adoption with over $100M in active loans as of 2024, primarily to real-world businesses in emerging markets. The lending is conducted through Borrower Pools, where borrowers receive USDC loans after passing KYC and credit verification.
Token Distribution and Governance
The initial token distribution allocated 35% to the team and investors with a 4-year vesting schedule. The remaining tokens were distributed to the community through various mechanisms including liquidity mining and governance participation. Team tokens are subject to long-term vesting schedules, reducing the risk of founder enrichment.
Development Activity
The protocol shows consistent development activity with regular updates to the smart contracts and risk assessment mechanisms. The team maintains transparency through detailed documentation and regular community updates.
Revenue Model Analysis
Goldfinch's revenue model involves facilitating loans without interest (riba) through a unique structure where investors receive 'investment units' representing their share of the borrower pool. However, some aspects of the protocol's yield generation mechanism may raise questions from a Shariah perspective.
Crypto Impact
To assign a comfort level investing in Goldfinch from a halal perspective we need to determine whether it has a net positive or negative impact.
Towards this end, the table below is used to tally all the positive and negative considerations our members can think of related to Goldfinch.
If you don’t see something that should be listed, positive or negative, feel free to submit your own contribution using the button “Contribute”.
We will review your contribution for accuracy before publication.
Importantly, you can review listed contributions and vote on which one you think has the greatest impact, positive or negative.
You only have one vote per asset so use it wisely.
You can change your vote if you change your mind.