CRYPTO61120 - Decentralised Finance: Lending and staking: Meaning of ‘loan� and ‘staking�

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp activities of lending and staking have been particularly popular uses of Decentralised Finance (DeFi). It should be noted that there’s no statutory or legal meaning of the terms ‘lendingâ€� and ‘stakingâ€� in this context. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp lending and staking section of guidance (CRYPTO61000) applies to two types of transaction:

A person (“lender�) transfers the control of tokens to another person (“borrower�). At the time that transfer occurs, the lender acquires a right to demand that the borrower transfers to the lender the control of an equivalent quantity of tokens at a time in the future to satisfy the loan.

A person (“liquidity provider�) transfers the control of tokens to a DeFi lending platform. This type of transaction may be termed “staking� or “providing liquidity�. At the time when the transfer occurs, the DeFi lending platform transfers control of one or more different tokens to the liquidity provider.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp DeFi lending platform has the ability to transfer the control of tokens provided to it by the liquidity provider to other persons (“borrowersâ€�). It will normally do so on terms that mean the borrower has to provide a return to the DeFi lending platform in excess of the quantity of tokens that the borrower initially received. This return, or a part of it, will be passed onto the liquidity provider as their compensation for providing the liquidity to the DeFi lending platform.