In addition to personal symptoms, non-fungal symptoms (NFT) have grown and become almost impossible to detect. Even with recent delays, NFT’s total sales could reach $ 90 billion by the end of this year (after seeing a record $ 40 billion in 2021). That initiative brought an exciting new dimension from a new group of participants to the NFT ecosystem – donors.
And a new entry to the NFT space comes a new label for NFTs – collateral.
Whether it’s a secured NFT loan, a used car loan or a multimillion-dollar leveraged fund of an entire company, lenders and creditors agree. The lender is encouraged to lend money over the long term to the borrower in exchange for the interest charged on the amount of the loan. The borrower wants to pay interest because they want an immediate source of cash without having to sell the property.
What changes with each asset class is the way the lender is protected from not paying the lender, or being “secured.” In a used car market, the lender gets the right to the car if the lender refuses. The deep essence of the established rental laws (Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, or UCC) is to give lenders reasonable confidence that this transfer will occur without the need for a contract. of the creditor.
So what are the fixed credit arrangements in relation to NFTs?
Jeff Karas a lawyer in the law firm of Anderson Kill. This article from The Node, CoinDesk Daily covers important stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can sign up to receive the full version newspaper on this.
While it is easy to plan, and to execute a smart agreement (if the borrower does not pay, then the NFT switches from a money bag to a gift bag), the legal protections of using the NFT as a matter of fact is a difficult question of the “perfection” of the provider. safe interest. NFT is not a car, and under current UCC rules, NFT is not “art.” It may be “highly intangible,” which is why UCC is often used because of the difficulty of separating costs, or “investment property,” which is the term used to refer to securities and financial assets such as security.
If the NFT is simple, then the easiest way for the donor to benefit is by filing a UCC-1 Financing Statement in the state where the NFT is considered to be the owner. It may be easy to know the legal name and location of the owner of the car, but in the digital world and the infrequent concept of the world of NFTs, it can be difficult for a lender to know. the right appeal power to fulfill their interest in a Bored Apple whose “MoonBoiBallz99” is. ignorant.
An NFT called an investment asset is even better for crypto lenders and lenders. A security interest in an investment property is terminated by “authority.” The lender can gain control under the UCC if (1) the NFT is placed directly in the lender’s wallet, which is either a consolation for the lender, or (2) the NFT is exchanged with a third party and an agreement is signed by the issuer. , the debtor and the third party. Under this tripartite agreement, the lender gives the lender security to the NFT, but the NFT is kept in a private account (or wallet) with a third party. The third party agrees to simply follow the lender’s instructions, and then give the lender the “power” of the NFT, to prepare their security deposit.
Three -party agreements of this nature, often referred to as “account management agreements,” are common in traditional investment ecosystems where a third party is a bank or a banking group. However, banks have often been referred to as the “enemy” rather than the central reliance on cryptocurrency and the NFT space, so some legitimization of NFT lending will be required in new projects. to fill this gap.
Some companies have already put their toes into the NFT loan watershed with different patterns of implementation and different levels of real legal protections and are visible at their core. The most widely used example to date is the South Africa NFTfi project, which has secured over 13,000 loans and a cumulative loan volume of over $ 212 million since its inception (e.g. as well as figures obtained from Dune Analytics). NFTfi agreements between a lender and a lender are based on smart agreements that are “signed” by each party, but it is not clear at first glance that they are secure. those agreements from a legal protection perspective. No simple agreement was notified to any lender or creditor on the NFTfi system, but it was reported that more than 20% of all loans were declined and none were reported in the fall. the NFT secured on the insolvency of the creditor.
Other NFT loans have been launched in recent months (including Arcade, which completed a $ 15 million Series A Round fund in December led by Pantera Capital). More is on the way. Some services in the chain such as NFTfi, and others, such as Nexo.io, promise a more nuanced, over-the-counter approach (with an application process for each. this creditor). Of course, it is not clear how many of these new institutions are investing in the legalization of their loan agreements.
Perhaps, as with many stores, serious legal defenses are not called in until there is a legitimate problem to argue or a serious problem to make heads. When that time comes, crypto lawyers and registered credit lawyers need to be ready to get their old copy of the UCC and understand how the blockchain’s independent path has brought the (new) space.