Updated on April 19, 2022
Overview
Welcome to flowty, a peer-to-peer (P2P) collateralized NFT lending platform focused exclusively on Flow blockchain-based NFTs. Flowty’s three co-founders (Mike, Austin and Guillaume) have been active community members in the Flow ecosystem since NBA Top Shot’s closed beta in Summer / Fall 2020. As passionate NFT collectors and investors ourselves, we are excited to bring you a platform that can enhance the collector experience on Flow.
Our goal is to build a comprehensive and user-friendly platform that offers collectors and other ecosystem participants the opportunity to unlock greater utility for their NFTs. We hope to introduce a different way to think about the value proposition of NFTs, specifically around how they, like any other asset in your portfolio (stocks, art, real estate, physical collectibles, etc), can be used as versatile financial instruments. While this primer is focused on how our P2P lending marketplace works, over time, our suite of tools, services and features will expand to include much more.
The platform is designed to offer services to two key cohorts: Borrowers and Lenders.
- Borrowers can unlock liquidity by securing short-term loans using their NFTs as collateral. Read more on why a collector may want to secure a short-term loan here.
- Lenders can generate a return on capital by leveraging their NFT expertise and experience to identify loan listings to fund. Read more on some strategies that may be helpful for Lenders as they navigate the flowty Marketplace here.
The remainder of the post is designed to be used as a guide for beginners using the platform for the first time and as a reference for experienced users.
How to Flowty (Step-by-Step Guide)
First visit to flowty
- Read our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, FAQ and Risks posts
- If you have any questions or uncertainties following your review of the posts, please visit our Discord
- Connect Blocto wallet
- Save your email address — users are required to save an email address to their profile for notification purposes
Notes
- Users do not need to connect a wallet to browse the platform and view the Marketplace
- Unfamiliar with or don’t have a Blocto wallet? Please visit this post from the Flow team for an overview of how to set one up
Borrower
- Connect Blocto wallet
- Navigate to Marketplace
- Click “New Listing”
- Input desired loan terms. Please see our post on How to Value and Price Loan Listings on Flowty for some data and commentary that may be helpful in thinking through terms. Importantly, the inputs are fully dictated by the user. We will not be reviewing listings, and our team will not provide advice on specific listings. Please ensure that you fully understand the loan process before listing a loan.
- For an explanation of fees / royalties and the difference between the amount that a Borrower receives and the amount that a Lender funds, please review our Overview of Flowty Fees
- Decide whether to opt in for Auto Repayment. If a Borrower opts in for Auto Repayment AND has a sufficient balance (of the same token as the loan) at loan expiration, our smart contract will repay the loan on the Borrower’s behalf.
- Pay listing fee, and submit your listing to the Marketplace
- After submission, please review your loan listing in the Marketplace to ensure the listing is correct. There is a five-minute grace period after you have added a new listing to the Marketplace during which you can delist but Lenders cannot yet fund the loan listing. This is to ensure that users have adequate time to review and remedy any erroneous inputs or listings. As a reminder, the loan amount displayed in the Marketplace will be higher than the amount you will receive.
Lender
- Connect Blocto wallet
- Navigate to Marketplace
- Review available loan listings in the Marketplace (please see section on Key Listing Terms below for an explanation of terms)
- If you identify a loan that you believe offers adequate compensation given the risk profile of the underlying collateral, select the listing in the Marketplace to see additional detail
- If you would like to proceed with funding the listing, select “Fund”
- Approve the transaction in your wallet and fund the listing
What happens after a listing is funded by a Lender?
- Collateral is automatically transferred from Borrower’s wallet to our smart contract and funds are transferred from Lender’s wallet to Borrower’s wallet (net of flowty’s transaction fee and a collection royalty, the calculation and explanation of which can be found here)
- Please note that flowty does not profit in any way from the collection royalty. The collection royalty is held in our smart contract until the outcome of the loan is determined (repayment or default). In a repayment scenario, the royalty is returned to the Lender at the conclusion of the loan. In a default scenario (Borrower fails to repay and there is an ownership transfer), the collection royalty is automatically sent to a wallet designated by the creator of the collection.
- The loan timer (Duration), which is set by Borrower at the time of loan listing, begins
- There are two outcomes:
- Full Repayment by Borrower: Borrower pays back the principal (original loan amount) + interest before the loan timer expires (or via auto repayment) — the collateral is automatically transferred back to the Borrower’s wallet and the collection royalty is returned to the Lender
- Borrower Defaults: Borrower does not pay back the loan before loan maturity and has not opted in for auto repayment (or has an insufficient balance for auto repayment) — the collateral is automatically transferred to the Lender’s wallet and the royalty is sent to the creator / artist of the collateral
Important Notes
- The flowty team will never provide recommendations on specific loan listing terms (for Borrowers) or funding decisions (for Lenders).
- The flowty team will not provide advice on the tax implications of using the platform. Users should consult a tax professional.
- Always be careful when interacting with members of the flowty community. We do not endorse or support transactions outside of the flowty platform.
- Clicking links posted by community members within the flowty Discord can lead to adverse outcomes. When in doubt, please reach out to any member of the flowty team.
Flowty UI
We built the flowty UI with a focus on simplicity and user experience. You can interact with every page of the website, while always being within a single click of returning to the most important sectors of the platform.
Universal (Accessible from any Page)
- “Flowty” Button: The flowty logo never leaves the top left corner of the screen. Click this button at any time to revert to the home page
- Navigation Menu: Clicking the navigation menu options (Marketplace, Activity and FAQ for now, with more to follow) will take you to the relevant page
- Connect Wallet: Clicking this button will prompt you to connect a supported wallet. Initially, we will only offer support for Blocto. We may add support for other wallets in the future. Users can browse the platform without connecting a wallet but must connect to list, fund or repay loans in the Marketplace. Learn more about Blocto here. Once you have connected your wallet, you will be able to disconnect or access your profile settings and user activity page.
- Footer: Links to our Twitter, Medium, Discord, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy
Landing Page
When you open the flowty website, you will be greeted with flowty’s home page:
- How it Works: a short description of how the platform functions
- Recently Listed: a snapshot of the most recent listings that Borrowers have added to the marketplace
- Recently Funded: a snapshot of active loans that were recently funded by Lenders
Marketplace
Clicking the Marketplace tab will direct you to flowty’s interactive marketplace, where all active (available to be funded) listings are displayed
- Search: narrows the listing results using keywords.
- Filters: hosts a list of flowty supported NFT properties. Use these to curate search results.
- Sort: contains various listing variables to dictate the order of search results; only one can be active at a time.
- Explore: a comprehensive overview of listings available in the Marketplace. This page automatically refreshes listings in real-time.
- New Listing (Button): initiates the loan listing process. Brings up a prompt that allows you to select an NFT from your connected wallet and begin the listing process. The new listing button will only be visible to users who have connected a wallet.
- View Style: Some of our users may prefer to view the Marketplace in a table format (rather than a card format, which is the default view). Please use the following icon to toggle to a table view:
FAQ
A navigation menu item that directs you to our post with a list of frequently asked questions. For your protection and to assist us in our efforts to be as transparent as reasonably possible, please review the FAQ before taking any actions on the platform.
Connect Wallet / My Profile
After you connect a wallet, the “Connect Wallet” button transitions to display your wallet address. Click on the address to open a dropdown menu and select “Activity” to view your complete profile.
- Activity: displays all user activity
- Borrower: displays your Marketplace activity as a Borrower. This is the best place to find outstanding loans -> filter by FUNDED
- Lender: displays your Marketplace activity as a Lender. This is the best place to find outstanding loans -> filter by FUNDED
You can also reach “Account Settings” from the wallet dropdown menu, where you can:
- Revise email address
- Select or update a profile picture
- Select or update a username
Key Listing Terms
Navigate to the Marketplace. Select any active listing in the Marketplace to load the listing’s full view, where the offer details are displayed:
- Collateral: (if the loan is not repaid, you will receive this NFT) for the selected listing
- Loan Amount: the amount you will transfer if you elect to fund the loan
- Duration: the length of the loan and the number of days that the Borrower has to repay the principal (original loan amount) + interest before the NFT is transferred to the Lender. If Borrower has opted in for Auto Repayment and has a sufficient balance, our smart contract will repay the loan on the Borrower’s behalf after loan maturity.
- Loan Rate: the rate used to calculate the interest a Lender would generate if a loan is repaid
- APR: annualized version of Loan Rate calculated as “365 / Duration * Loan Rate”. For example: 10% Loan Rate on a 100 day loan would be 36.5% APR
- Total Interest: the total interest on the loan (calculated as Loan Rate X Loan Amount)
- Properties: an overview of the NFT’s properties
- MR LTV: a metric that Borrowers can use to size loans and Lenders can use to assess loans. The metric is calculated as Loan Amount / MomentRanks Value of collateral. Read more here.
Conclusion
Flowty is an innovative peer-to-peer lending platform designed to support the needs of a broad range of both NFT collectors and investors seeking a return on their capital. Flowty provides previously unavailable functionality wrapped in a simple, user-friendly interface, designed to be accessible to users with minimal experience in the NFT ecosystem.
Where to Find Us
