Filecoin’s ecological liquidity leasing protocol, GLIF, announced on Tuesday (6th) that it has completed a $4.5 million seed round of financing led by Multicoin Capital. Other participating institutions include Zee Prime Capital, Dialectic Capital, Fintech Collective, Big Brain Holdings, Fenbushi Capital, Vinny Lingham, Protocol Labs, and Mana Inc. Some angel investors also participated in this financing.
In addition to developing tools to earn FIL revenue with the new funds, GLIF CEO Jonathan Schwartz stated that these funds will also help the protocol expand its “liquidity leasing” functionality, which centers around the revenue-generating liquidity leasing token iFIL. FIL is Filecoin’s “Gas” token used to pay for data storage and retrieval on the network.
This financing also lays the foundation for GLIF’s upcoming points program. According to CoinDesk, an informed source revealed that token airdrops based on points are GLIF’s “tentative plan”.
Liquidity Leasing
GLIF provides a mechanism for “liquidity leasing” for Filecoin, which is roughly equivalent to Ethereum’s “liquidity staking”. According to Schwartz, GLIF’s role is to bridge the gap between ordinary FIL holders who want to earn revenue and storage providers who generate revenue.
GLIF liquidity providers earn rental fees in proportion to their FIL deposits into the liquidity pool. Storage providers rent FIL from the pool and pay rental fees to liquidity providers and the protocol. GLIF states that this mechanism improves capital efficiency between FIL holders and storage providers.
Currently, holders receive the native liquidity leasing token iFIL, which serves as a deposit certificate, similar to stETH in Ethereum’s liquidity staking protocol Lido. The value of iFIL increases weekly with the growth of interest.
GLIF Points
Schwartz stated that GLIF’s goal is to deploy 100 million FIL to storage providers within a few years. As of the time of writing, 1,600 users have locked in 10 million tokens.
The success of GLIF’s growth strategy may partly depend on its points program, which is expected to launch in the first quarter of this year. According to an article released by GLIF, iFIL holders will accumulate points proportionally based on the amount of rewards they earn from their deposits, and storage providers can also earn GLIF points proportionally based on the amount of rental fees they pay to the protocol.
GLIF stated in the article:
An informed source revealed that GLIF’s “tentative plan” will determine the initial amount of tokens airdropped to users through points.
