A new $100,000 Guardian Defender contest with @iris_credit is now live! IRIS brings fixed-rate, fixed-term borrowing to variable-rate lending markets. Details on participating available below! ⤵️

Our review of @iris_credit’s lending contracts is complete, and our audit report is now live. The contracts bring fixed-rate, fixed-term borrowing to variable-rate lending venues.

DeFi lending is already a $28.5B market. But borrowers still can’t predict what their debt will cost. Fixed-rate lending is trying to fix that ↓ This factor is divided into 5 different approaches 1. Intent / orderbook-based credit Borrowers and lenders quote the rate + duration they want, then wait for a match. @Morpho Midnight @TenorFinance @term_labs @Loopscale @rheo_xyz @jup_offerbook 2. Tokenized fixed-maturity debt Turn fixed-term loans into tradable maturity assets, similar to bonds or PTs. @TermMaxFi @Fira_Lend @Secured_Fi 3. Fixed + variable lending Users can choose between floating rates or a specific rate + duration. @kamino @ExactlyProtocol 4. Borrower-set rates Borrowers choose their own interest rate, with different trade-offs depending on how low they set it. @LiquityProtocol @flexmeow Then there are a few more unique models: @iris_credit: solvers source liquidity from existing lending markets and manage it to keep borrowing costs predictable. @kpk_io × @eulerfinance: curator-built fixed-rate markets anchored to benchmark yields. @InverseFinance: tokenizes borrowing rights through DBR instead of using a fixed maturity. @WildcatFi: fixed-rate credit for undercollateralized/private borrowers. @aave Stable Vaults: predictable yield for depositors rather than fixed-rate borrowing. Different models but same direction DeFi solved instant liquidity. The next step is making the cost of capital predictable.

One problem that is being actively solved across the fixed-rate lending stack is the cold-start problem. You can now keep earning yield on your orders through a variable-rate pool and only commit capital once your order executes in the fixed-rate market. This removes the question of capital being "unproductive" while it is a resting order.

Fixed-Rate Lending: Market Structure and Protocol Design A report on the protocols building fixed-rate and fixed-maturity credit products. Read the full report here:

Played around on the @iris_credit testnet over the weekend. Ran a few loans across the three live markets. The UI itself barely needs describing, which is sort of the point. > You state what you need. > Collateral, size, how long, the highest rate you'll accept. > A quote comes back with a countdown. > Take it or don't. The maturity field is fully customizable. I wanted 4 days, so I entered 4 days. No limited dropdown, nothing rounding me into someone else's calendar. What runs underneath is the more interesting part to me. > You're not matched against a lender. > You sign an intent, and solvers compete off-chain to underwrite it. > The winner puts up its own capital as a guarantee, opens your loan as a normal variable position on whichever venue is cheapest right then, and hands you a fixed rate on top. Then it keeps working. As rates move, the solver can shift that position across venues chasing cheaper funding. Your rate never moves. Theirs does. If the real funding cost lands below your quote, that gap is their profit. If it runs above, their own capital eats the difference. So the fixed rate isn't an asset sitting in a pool somewhere. It's a promise backed by capital, with a variable position underneath doing the work. Which is exactly how a bank treasury desk operates. > A bank issuing you a 10-year fixed mortgage doesn't go find a matching 10-year fixed deposit. > It funds you with whatever's cheapest, rolls it, hedges what's left over, and manages that funding stack for the life of your loan. > You see one rate. They run the machine behind it. IRIS turns that into a competitive auction instead of something one bank keeps in-house. Treasury skill has always been a private moat. That part actually feels new to me. Zoom out and @0xCheeezzyyyy's recent money stack framing seems pretty clean way to place this imo. M0 is capital entering. M1 is wrapping it so it circulates. M2 is credit, where capital gets amplified. Fixed-term credit sits right at the frontier of that top layer. And within it, fixed rate is really two different products. > Some borrowers need a date. The loan has to mature the day their obligation does. RWA funds, token unlocks, anything with dated liabilities. > Others just need the rate to stop moving and don't care about the date. @Morpho Midnight serves the first. Fixed as a property of the instrument. The rails. IRIS serves the second. Fixed as a property of a managed service. The desk. Both need deep variable markets underneath, and a matured Midnight just becomes one more venue a solver can source from. One thing worth flagging: it's testnet, so not everything maps 1-1. But the rates are realistic. Solvers price against live venue rates, so a quote is close to what the same loan would actually cost. Size is the part that won't be. They're rolling out with limited solving capacity at first, though it seems that scaling size isn't the bottleneck. Worth reaching out the the team if you need customized execution ig. Still early, but this felt like stating a need rather than decoding a system to express one. Good stuff from the @Glovin_ and the team.

IRIS Testnet is LIVE and test assets are out. App : We went through the responses by hand and curated some of the thoughtful responses. If you were funded, the assets are already in the address you applied with. Nothing to claim anywhere. Read the guide before you use the app and set up the network  Looking forward to hearing from you!

IRIS Testnet is LIVE and test assets are out. App : We went through the responses by hand and curated some of the thoughtful responses. If you were funded, the assets are already in the address you applied with. Nothing to claim anywhere. Read the guide before you use the app and set up the network  Looking forward to hearing from you!