Dharma Labs completed a Series A funding round earlier this year to support its cryptocurrency lending platform project. The San Francisco-based company raised $7 million from companies such as Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures and others and, if there was any concern about the platform not going live, those concerns are now extinguished. Dharma announced this past Monday in a Medium post that the platform is now live.
According to the announcement, Dharma states, “Today, money just became magical. Dharma is now available to the public, enabling anyone in the world to borrow and lend cryptocurrency with a few clicks. All it takes is an internet connection.”
Users can receive a line of credit against their crypto without needing a bank account or credit check and can borrow Ether (ETH) or DAI, the platform’s own crypto at “the most affordable rates on the market.” Going forward, other crypto assets will be added to the platform.
Dharma adds, “Cryptocurrency is, and should act like, money. You should be able to use your crypto in everyday life, whether it’s earning interest, paying your bills, or taking out a loan, your crypto should do more.”
Users can lend and borrow crypto assets from anywhere using any wallet. Dharma points out, “A specific point of emphasis for us was freeing users from the shackles of ‘Web 3’ UX. Our users are free to send funds from any wallet they prefer, be it a mobile or hardware wallet.”
Interest will be earned at a rate of 2.5% annually for ETH and 8% for DAI. Dharma asserts on its website that more than $1 million has already been borrowed using the platform, and that more than $1.6 million has been made available.
The company adds, “Dharma is beautiful and easily accessible, but importantly, it is also secure — at no point are Dharma users forced to give up ownership of their funds. This is in stark contrast to many of today’s popular crypto products and all legacy financial institutions. For example, centralized crypto exchanges have lost billions in customer funds because they require users to relinquish control of their funds to a centralized custodian,” concluding that, with Dharma, the bank is always the user.
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