Lending markets: how it works

How Lending markets works

PhoenixCo runs twenty-four lending markets on BNB Smart Chain, including BTCB, ETH, BNB, USDC, USDT, built on Compound V2. Supplying an asset earns interest paid by its borrowers; enabling it as collateral lets you borrow other assets against it. Each market's rates move with how much of it is borrowed. How much you can borrow depends on the market and on your VIP level. If your debt grows past what your collateral supports, anyone can liquidate part of the position. Every rate, limit and balance is read live on the market pages.

The markets: every rate, cap and price source, read live

Supplying and borrowing

What happens when I supply an asset?: The market takes the asset and gives you its receipt token, a pToken such as pUSDT, which you can redeem for the asset plus the interest it has earned. Only your wallet can redeem it. The interest comes from the market's borrowers.
Does supplying make an asset collateral?: Not by itself. You enable each supplied asset as collateral separately; until you do, it earns interest but supports no borrowing and cannot be seized. Borrowing an asset enters its market automatically.
How much can I borrow?: Each market allows you to borrow up to a loan-to-value against it as collateral: a percentage of the collateral's value. That percentage rises with your VIP level. Your borrowing limit is the sum across your collateral, and the protocol refuses a borrow, a withdrawal or a pToken transfer that would take you past it. How the VIP ladder raises it
Which assets are listed?: twenty-four markets, each named with its contract on the markets page. Supplying XPHX, sXPHX, PHSUN, SZNX and IRTX is possible alongside the major assets. The site lists only markets the protocol has listed on chain. Every market

Interest

How are interest rates set?: By each market's interest-rate curve. The borrow rate rises with utilisation, the share of the market that is borrowed: gently at first, then steeply past one or two kinks, so that some of every market stays available to withdraw. The admin chooses each market's curve and can replace it. The market pages read the curve in use.
What do suppliers earn?: The borrow rate times utilisation, less the reserve factor: supply rate = borrow rate x utilisation x (1 - reserve factor). Interest is charged per block and compounds whenever the market accrues, which happens on every interaction.
Where does the reserve factor go?: Into the market's reserves, which stay in the market contract. Only the admin can withdraw them, and nothing routes them anywhere automatically.
Are some rates paid in something other than dollars?: Yes. Every market pays interest in its own asset. For TomanX (IRTX), XPHX and the other non-dollar assets, a rate is a return in that asset, and the markets table labels the unit on the row. Why an IRTX rate is not a dollar return

Risk and liquidation

What does the Risk figure mean?: How close a position is to liquidation, on a scale where 100% is the liquidation line. Below 100% the position is safe from liquidation; above it, it can be liquidated. It rises when your debt grows or your collateral falls in price.
Where does borrowing stop?: At your borrowing limit, which is always below 100% Risk. At higher VIP levels the limit sits close to the line; with no level it sits well below it. The site's Safe borrow figure stops at 85% Risk.
What sets the liquidation line?: Each market has one liquidation threshold for everyone, set above the highest loan-to-value any level can borrow at. Higher VIP levels add a small grace beyond it before a position can be liquidated.
Who can liquidate, and what does it cost?: Anyone except the borrower. A liquidator repays part of the debt, no more than a set share of it and no more than it takes to bring the position back to a safer level, and receives collateral worth that amount plus a liquidation bonus. A small fixed share of the seized collateral goes to that market's reserves. What you lose is the bonus on the part liquidated; the rest of the position stays yours.

Prices

Where do prices come from?: Most markets use Chainlink feeds, each checked for freshness and for sane bounds on every read. XPHX, PHSUN and SZNX use a time-weighted average of a PancakeSwap pool cross-checked against a second pool. Liquid staking assets such as slisBNB and SolvBTC use their exchange rate times the price of the asset they stand for. sXPHX uses its vault exchange rate times the XPHX price. TomanX uses the rate PhoenixCo publishes. Each market page names its source as read from the oracle.
What happens when a price cannot be read?: The oracle never reports a price of zero. An asset it cannot price counts as no collateral, debt in it blocks new borrowing and withdrawals, and liquidation against it is refused until the price returns. For XPHX, PHSUN and SZNX, disagreement between the priced pool and its witness pool halts new borrowing.
Is sXPHX priced at its pool price?: No. It is priced at its redemption rate times the price of XPHX, so a pool trading sXPHX below the vault does not move a borrower's liquidation point. If the vault rate ever fell by more than a set tolerance below its highest reading, new borrowing against sXPHX would halt. How sXPHX works

Caps, rewards and reflections

Are there caps?: Some markets have a borrow cap, and some groups of related assets share a ceiling on total borrowing in dollars. A market with a cap stops taking new borrowing at it. The market pages read each cap.
What is a supply reward?: A second token paid to a market's suppliers on top of the interest, by a separate campaign contract with a fixed budget and an end date. It pays by your pToken balance from the time your wallet is checkpointed, has no claim fee, and what you earn never expires.
Does supplied XPHX still earn reflections?: No. The XPHX market is excluded from XPHX reflections, so XPHX earns none while supplied. To keep earning them, hold XPHX in your wallet, lock it for a VIP level, or deposit it into the sXPHX vault. Supplying XPHX pays no transfer tax.

Who controls what

Who administers the lending contracts?: One admin address, held by PhoenixCo. The transparency page reads it on each visit and says whether it is a single key or a contract such as a multisig or timelock. The admin, read live
What can the admin change?: It can list markets, set loan-to-values, VIP levels, liquidation terms, caps and reserve factors, choose and replace rate curves, withdraw reserves, pause and unpause, and replace the price oracle, the risk engine and the comptroller's implementation. A separate guardian can pause but cannot unpause.
Can the admin take supplied assets?: Not directly: no function sweeps a market's asset, and reserves are the only balance the admin can withdraw. Replacing the price oracle, the risk engine or the comptroller's implementation would change how every position is valued and could be used to reach them, which is why the transparency page names the key that can do it.

Contracts

On BNB Smart Chain. Each opens on the block explorer.

Comptroller (Unitroller)0x93A4aFf14803c14615a588ed64067789990463f3
Risk engine0x97996708C9fb003C97C1ff26eed93D14cc995905
Price oracle0xC5e25AdAe08693c85Fd04e536b79cf2b64C3ec92
pXPHX (XPHX market)0x0a27cAA0C08Cd35B4622CF83f96cDbE613B7dD08
pBTCB (BTCB market)0x75E72915Ca1F44e6D7e0401C3fC64f004b1C932A
pETH (ETH market)0x5Aed836f4eBA9F73d8c2F85284c94b6F63282DE7
pWBNB (WBNB market)0x28b41A43238277cD6ABFFC8521D81bBCc02C8d72
pslisBNB (slisBNB market)0x60651a2a54761b5C1935cb9c529d66Faf2b260b3
psXPHX (sXPHX market)0xb8047AabfA0741c45ad241a288a9408aB88FbF94
pUSDC (USDC market)0xAd37451F67511F7418C0B55F4f5f63b51827A35a
pUSDT (USDT market)0x67058F36A87bF3055c198De3Ad9D7BB4D5BcCd0E
pDAI (DAI market)0x556197AB49D93282Be137F5f735cfF34Bd088E37
pIRTX (IRTX market)0x4C0F6CeCCC119064c956BBd0d1c404e6b17CB706
pPHSUN (PHSUN market)0x998C8a2c9823863c674E71e207d98Edf9c7897f0
pSZNX (SZNX market)0x02405448fa0daDD03Ee92E67a0432Df70496E3C6
pBCH (BCH market)0xca16FE86c9360c7390befbc6f7a21522D5b252dB
pLTC (LTC market)0xf2b18AB71B1C7D19B8F656297afD4cC364C41d18
pCAKE (Cake market)0x3f99b5F4F37cDbA3F26A04B696A752a3C6AF9B33
pTRX (TRX market)0xDd938AbB5F7dAA202A0117e26d3B53A192CAe7C6
pXRP (XRP market)0xe49420EDAb3Ec763EC15ba1DAAd23290E255b847
pSOL (SOL market)0x566ed7db436262344e13b8B5109ff44dc1FbE3f9
pLINK (LINK market)0x9AAf4bA38a2518C5e8ccfdcbbF955606757F5e7d
pDOGE (DOGE market)0x9c0d3A425f219f0b66Ede3edcB847Ac23141cB3D
pADA (ADA market)0x5c0AF52b219B9D05cf950315fBFa528b557fAbD9
pNEAR (NEAR market)0xE44575FBe1d02e79E412081D35d9852C1DA17c7F
pUNI (UNI market)0xF93f030f5BB645da3790c87547d7Fc8863Db4d97
pSolvBTC (SolvBTC market)0x638Ed3Ea78175A44f853b50F0b69797EBecE8115

Stated from the deployed contracts. The settings this page describes as current, such as fee exemptions, fee recipients and thresholds, are read from the chain before every deploy, and a deploy that would publish one of them wrong does not go out. Rates, balances and dates change by the second and are not stated here: they are read live on the product page.

How Lending markets works

The markets: every rate, cap and price source, read live

Supplying and borrowing

What happens when I supply an asset?

The market takes the asset and gives you its receipt token, a pToken such as pUSDT, which you can redeem for the asset plus the interest it has earned. Only your wallet can redeem it. The interest comes from the market's borrowers.

Does supplying make an asset collateral?

Not by itself. You enable each supplied asset as collateral separately; until you do, it earns interest but supports no borrowing and cannot be seized. Borrowing an asset enters its market automatically.

How much can I borrow?

Each market allows you to borrow up to a loan-to-value against it as collateral: a percentage of the collateral's value. That percentage rises with your VIP level. Your borrowing limit is the sum across your collateral, and the protocol refuses a borrow, a withdrawal or a pToken transfer that would take you past it. How the VIP ladder raises it

Which assets are listed?

twenty-four markets, each named with its contract on the markets page. Supplying XPHX, sXPHX, PHSUN, SZNX and IRTX is possible alongside the major assets. The site lists only markets the protocol has listed on chain. Every market

Interest

How are interest rates set?

By each market's interest-rate curve. The borrow rate rises with utilisation, the share of the market that is borrowed: gently at first, then steeply past one or two kinks, so that some of every market stays available to withdraw. The admin chooses each market's curve and can replace it. The market pages read the curve in use.

What do suppliers earn?

The borrow rate times utilisation, less the reserve factor: supply rate = borrow rate x utilisation x (1 - reserve factor). Interest is charged per block and compounds whenever the market accrues, which happens on every interaction.

Where does the reserve factor go?

Into the market's reserves, which stay in the market contract. Only the admin can withdraw them, and nothing routes them anywhere automatically.

Are some rates paid in something other than dollars?

Yes. Every market pays interest in its own asset. For TomanX (IRTX), XPHX and the other non-dollar assets, a rate is a return in that asset, and the markets table labels the unit on the row. Why an IRTX rate is not a dollar return

Risk and liquidation

What does the Risk figure mean?

How close a position is to liquidation, on a scale where 100% is the liquidation line. Below 100% the position is safe from liquidation; above it, it can be liquidated. It rises when your debt grows or your collateral falls in price.

Where does borrowing stop?

At your borrowing limit, which is always below 100% Risk. At higher VIP levels the limit sits close to the line; with no level it sits well below it. The site's Safe borrow figure stops at 85% Risk.

What sets the liquidation line?

Each market has one liquidation threshold for everyone, set above the highest loan-to-value any level can borrow at. Higher VIP levels add a small grace beyond it before a position can be liquidated.

Who can liquidate, and what does it cost?

Anyone except the borrower. A liquidator repays part of the debt, no more than a set share of it and no more than it takes to bring the position back to a safer level, and receives collateral worth that amount plus a liquidation bonus. A small fixed share of the seized collateral goes to that market's reserves. What you lose is the bonus on the part liquidated; the rest of the position stays yours.

Prices

Where do prices come from?

Most markets use Chainlink feeds, each checked for freshness and for sane bounds on every read. XPHX, PHSUN and SZNX use a time-weighted average of a PancakeSwap pool cross-checked against a second pool. Liquid staking assets such as slisBNB and SolvBTC use their exchange rate times the price of the asset they stand for. sXPHX uses its vault exchange rate times the XPHX price. TomanX uses the rate PhoenixCo publishes. Each market page names its source as read from the oracle.

What happens when a price cannot be read?

The oracle never reports a price of zero. An asset it cannot price counts as no collateral, debt in it blocks new borrowing and withdrawals, and liquidation against it is refused until the price returns. For XPHX, PHSUN and SZNX, disagreement between the priced pool and its witness pool halts new borrowing.

Is sXPHX priced at its pool price?

No. It is priced at its redemption rate times the price of XPHX, so a pool trading sXPHX below the vault does not move a borrower's liquidation point. If the vault rate ever fell by more than a set tolerance below its highest reading, new borrowing against sXPHX would halt. How sXPHX works

Caps, rewards and reflections

Are there caps?

Some markets have a borrow cap, and some groups of related assets share a ceiling on total borrowing in dollars. A market with a cap stops taking new borrowing at it. The market pages read each cap.

What is a supply reward?

A second token paid to a market's suppliers on top of the interest, by a separate campaign contract with a fixed budget and an end date. It pays by your pToken balance from the time your wallet is checkpointed, has no claim fee, and what you earn never expires.

Does supplied XPHX still earn reflections?

No. The XPHX market is excluded from XPHX reflections, so XPHX earns none while supplied. To keep earning them, hold XPHX in your wallet, lock it for a VIP level, or deposit it into the sXPHX vault. Supplying XPHX pays no transfer tax.

Who controls what

Who administers the lending contracts?

One admin address, held by PhoenixCo. The transparency page reads it on each visit and says whether it is a single key or a contract such as a multisig or timelock. The admin, read live

What can the admin change?

It can list markets, set loan-to-values, VIP levels, liquidation terms, caps and reserve factors, choose and replace rate curves, withdraw reserves, pause and unpause, and replace the price oracle, the risk engine and the comptroller's implementation. A separate guardian can pause but cannot unpause.

Can the admin take supplied assets?

Not directly: no function sweeps a market's asset, and reserves are the only balance the admin can withdraw. Replacing the price oracle, the risk engine or the comptroller's implementation would change how every position is valued and could be used to reach them, which is why the transparency page names the key that can do it.