Lending
Earn yield on your USDC backed by real collateral, with clear rules and no surprises.
Deposit USDC, choose which tokens you are comfortable backing, and earn yield on every loan matched to your capital. Based Loans gives lenders clear rules, no active management, and two defined paths to profit, whether borrowers buy back or walk away.
Explore the lending pages
● How lending works
The full picture: how your USDC gets matched to loans, what you earn, and how you control your risk.
● Deposits and withdrawal
How to deposit USDC, what happens when your funds are matched, and when you can withdraw.
● Yield and fee distribution
The two yield paths explained: fee income on buyback, and collateral ownership on default.
● Claiming collateral
How to claim tokens from expired loans when borrowers do not buy back.
What makes lending work
✔ You choose which tokens you back
You are not matched to every token on the platform. You pick the tokens you are willing to accept as collateral and set a USDC cap for each one. If you are not comfortable holding a token, do not enable it. Your settings stay in effect until you change them, and you can update them at any time.
✔ No liquidation management
There are no liquidation bots, no real-time price monitoring, and nothing you need to do mid-loan. Once your USDC is matched to a loan, it is locked for the term and the outcome is determined at expiry, either the borrower buys back or they do not. You do not intervene either way.
✔ Two clear paths to yield
When a borrower buys back, you receive your USDC plus your share of their fee. When a borrower defaults, you receive the collateral tokens they deposited. Those tokens were worth roughly twice the loan value at the time the loan was made, so even significant price declines give you room to come out ahead. Both outcomes pay you, just in different forms.
✔ Unmatched USDC is always yours
Any USDC sitting in your deposit that has not yet been matched to a loan can be withdrawn at any time. There is no lockup on unmatched capital. Only matched USDC, which is actively funding a live loan, waits until the loan resolves.
✔ 50% LTV is your buffer
Every loan is made at 50% loan-to-value. A borrower posting $2,000 in collateral receives $1,000 in USDC. If they default, you receive $2,000 worth of tokens at the price used when the loan opened. The token price has to fall more than 50% from open before your return drops below what you lent. That buffer is baked in at the protocol level and cannot be changed per-loan.
Lenders on Based Loans earn yield without managing positions, watching prices, or worrying about mid-loan events. Set your parameters once, let the protocol match your capital, and collect the outcome when loans resolve.