Teller, a blockchain project for decentralized lending incubated by A16Z’s crypto startup school, announced on Thursday it secured $1 million through its seed investment round, which was led by Framework Ventures with participation Parafi Capital and Maven11 Capital.
Teller revealed it is on a mission to disrupt the $215 trillion debt market. In DeFi, the decentralized loan market has grown tremendously.
“Nearly $2 billion worth of funds on Ethereum is currently locked in DeFi smart contracts. However, the current market is limited to overcollateralized loans. Teller is introducing the first undercollateralized DeFi lending protocol that can offer true credit risk analysis.”
While sharing more details the project’s plans, Ryan Berkun, Teller founder and CEO, stated:
“Yield farming is a way for many DeFi protocols to temporarily bootstrap liquidity and generate a convection of interest among crypto traders. But true success for DeFi requires entering mainstream appeal; we need to stop building in a vacuum. In a trustless environment, unsecured loans are tough to architect but necessary for the evolution of DeFi. Current proposed solutions of ‘shared credit lines’ only dilute risk, rather than create true user accountability.”
The Teller Protocol added that it will reduce lending risks for crypto holders and allow anyone to launch decentralized lending markets that can offer unsecured cryptocurrency loans. Ultimately, this will lower the barrier to entry for mainstream consumers, who in 2019 accounted for over $140 billion worth of personal loans in the U.S. alone.
