Is crypto lending safe?

DeFi lending protocols (Aave, Compound) are audited and overcollateralized, making them structurally safer than CeFi lenders. However, all lending carries smart contract risk, liquidation risk, and rate variability. Never lend more than you can afford to lose.

What are current crypto lending rates?

As of 2026, DeFi supply rates range from 2.6% to 3.8% APR on major stablecoins, while borrow rates range from 4.9% to 7.1%. CeFi platforms offer higher headline rates but carry additional counterparty risk.

category.nft_lending.label

category.nft_lending.promise

Starting path

Most of these venues will not give you back what your NFT was worth.

NFT lending venues evaluated on what can take your NFT away, what you get back when you default, what the protocol takes from the borrower, and its incident record and funding.

category.nft_lending.promise Reviewed on what can take your NFT away, what you get back when you default, what the protocol takes from the borrower, and its incident record and funding.

Start with the smart category assistant or jump straight into quick questions. Both paths narrow to the same recommendation standard.

How we review

Recommendation first, comparison only if needed.

Reviewed and rechecked on the current cycle.

Commercial relationships disclosed before clickout.

Audit

Infrastructure

Methodology

2026.04.0

published 2026-04-27

Providers tracked

630+

across 70 categories

Last verified

2026-08-06

editorial freshness

Editorial board

4

audit-log live

Decision guide

What matters most before choosing in this category

Decide what happens when you default before you decide anything else, because that is where these venues differ most and where the money is. Only two of the seven auction the NFT and return the difference to the borrower — MetaStreet states the surplus is remitted to the borrower, and BendDAO that the excess will belong to the borrower. On the rest, defaulting hands over the whole asset regardless of what it was worth against the debt. Next, ask what can seize it at all: fixed-term peer-to-peer loans cannot be liquidated on a price move, while pool-based venues can, and the one venue here that liquidates on floor price states outright that its oracle algorithm is not transparent. Then read the venue risk — this category lost roughly nine-tenths of its capital in twelve months.

Key question

If you default, does the venue auction the NFT and return the surplus, or simply transfer it?

Key question

Can a price feed liquidate you mid-loan, and does the venue publish which oracle covers your collection?

Key question

Is the protocol fee published anywhere, and is the venue still funded enough to be there at maturity?

Current editor lead

MetaStreet v2

Pooled NFT lending in which depositors choose the loan limit they are willing to lend at, with no price feed in the protocol.

Data checked Aug 2026

Pooled NFT lending in which depositors choose the loan limit they are willing to lend at, with no price feed in the protocol. Strongest on what can take your nft away (10/10): The only venue here that states the absence of an oracle as a design property in its own words: 'Being an oracleless protocol, the Pool does not make assumptions or impose restrictions on the maximum or safe loan limits based on a collateral's current market value.' and 'Instead, depositors choose loan limits… Weakest on whether it is still a working venue, and what has gone wrong (1/10): MetaStreet does not appear in DefiLlama's protocol list at all as of 2026-08-06: the full list returned 7,995 protocols and the string 'metastreet' appears in none of them, and https://api.llama.fi/tvl/metastreet and .../metastreet-v2 both return HTTP 400 with the body 'Protocol not found'. Its own homepage now leads… Published price: From MetaStreet's admin fees page, fetched 2026-08-06: 'Admin fees are collected from loan repayments, as a fixed percentage of the total interest of the loan.' and 'Only successfully repaid loans contribute admin fees.' and 'In the case of a defaulted loan…

Best for

What can take your NFT away — 10/10What you get back when you default — 10/10

Main tradeoff

MetaStreet has the best-documented liquidation design in this pool and the least evidence that anyone is using it. It is the only venue whose docs promise the surplus back to the borrower, and simultaneously the only one that no longer appears in DefiLlama's 7,995-protocol list - so its TVL, utilisation and originations cannot be independently verified on any neutral source, and its own borrow page rendered no pools on 2026-08-06. Note also that the pools are upgradeable and not yet governed: 'Proxied contracts are currently owned by the MetaStreet Labs multisig, but will ultimately be transferred to protocol governance.'

Verify before signup

From MetaStreet's admin fees page, fetched 2026-08-06: 'Admin fees are collected from loan repayments, as a fixed percentage of the total interest of the loan.' and 'Only successfully repaid loans contribute admin fees.' and 'In the case of a defaulted loan, the admin fee is used to offset liquidation losses.' The governing sentence is: 'Admin fees are set to zero for the time being. They can be enabled and managed through a governance process in the future to accrue fees to the protocol.' Normalised on 2026-08-06: a 10 ETH loan held 30 days and repaid on time pays MetaStreet 0.0000 ETH in admin fees, because the published rate is currently zero. The interest itself is produced by the pool's deposited tick curve and no rate is published on any dated page.

Weighted criteria

What can take your NFT away30%

What you get back when you default26%

What it costs, published before you connect a wallet22%

Whether it is still a working venue, and what has gone wrong22%

Leading options

Shared shortlist for this category

These providers are pulled from the same category comparison catalog used in validation, so the category page, comparison page, and provider reviews stay aligned.

MetaStreet v2

Pooled NFT lending in which depositors choose the loan limit they are willing to lend at, with no price feed in the protocol.

Editor lead

Best for: What can take your NFT away — 10/10

GONDI V3.1

Peer-to-peer NFT loans in which multiple lenders can each fund a tranche of principal against one collateral item.

Peer-to-peer NFT loans in which multiple lenders can each fund a tranche of principal against one collateral item. Strongest on what can take your nft away (8/10): Date-driven only: 'When a loan defaults (passes due date without repayment), the liquidation process depends on the number of tranches.' No floor-price feed appears anywhere in the loan underwriting or liquidation path of the documentation corpus fetched 2026-08-06; the sole oracle reference is for currency conversion… Weakest on what you get back when you default (2/10): GONDI has the most elaborate default machinery in this pool and it does not return the borrower's equity. Single tranche: 'The lender can claim the collateral directly through the GONDI dApp.' Multi-tranche: the largest-principal lender gets a 48-hour buyout window in which they 'pay all other tranches their full… Published price: From GONDI's protocol fee page, fetched 2026-08-06, which carries two dates on its face - 'Effective starting October 24th, 2025.' on the lender table and 'Updated on February 24th, 2026' at the foot: 'Borrowers pay no protocol fees on loan origination or…

Best for: What can take your NFT away — 8/10

NFTfi

Peer-to-peer NFT loans on fixed terms, where lender and borrower negotiate every parameter directly.

Peer-to-peer NFT loans on fixed terms, where lender and borrower negotiate every parameter directly. Strongest on what can take your nft away (9/10): Strengthened during verification: the draft argued this from absence, but NFTfi states it affirmatively. 'All loans have fixed terms without price-based liquidation, and borrowers can renegotiate existing loans and take loans out against bundles of multiple NFTs.' and, on why peer-to-peer differs from peer-to-pool… Weakest on what you get back when you default (1/10): Total forfeiture, described in the lender's operating instructions rather than in any borrower risk page: 'In the event a borrower fails to repay the loan within the loan term, as a lender, you have the right to foreclose the loan and take ownership of the NFT used as collateral.' The step-by-step is 'To foreclose the… Published price: Corrected during verification - this is the largest single correction in this file. The draft quoted NFTfi's fees page as saying 'The NFTfi service fee for Lenders is 5% of the interest earned by Lenders on successful loans.' and 'In the case of a loan…

Best for: What can take your NFT away — 9/10

Browse this network

Methodology

How this category is reviewed

Reviewed on what can take your NFT away, what you get back when you default, what the protocol takes from the borrower, and its incident record and funding.

Reviewed on: What can take your NFT away, What you get back when you default, What it costs, published before you connect a wallet, Whether it is still a working venue, and what has gone wrong.

This page is a maintained category surface, not a static marketing block. Review freshness, provider positioning, and recommendation logic should stay consistent with quiz and provider pages.

Frequently asked

Questions people ask before choosing nft loans

If my NFT is worth far more than my loan and I default, do I get the difference back?

On most of these venues, no. Only MetaStreet and BendDAO document an auction that returns the excess — MetaStreet states the surplus is remitted to the borrower, and BendDAO that the excess will belong to the borrower. On NFTfi, Blend, Gondi and Zharta in the ordinary case, a default transfers the collateral to the lender and the loan closes, whatever the asset was worth. That single difference can exceed every fee in this comparison combined, which is why it carries the second-heaviest weight in the ranking.

Can I be liquidated because the floor price dropped for a day?

Only on venues that price collateral continuously. Fixed-term peer-to-peer loans have no price trigger at all — the loan runs to its term and defaults only if you do not repay. Pool-based venues do liquidate on price, and BendDAO is the clearest case: its health factor is floor price times liquidation threshold over debt with interest, while its own oracle page states that the algorithm details are not transparent, which it says is to protect its mechanism. If an illiquid week is your realistic worst case, that trigger is the thing to avoid rather than the rate.

Why are protocols I have heard of missing from this comparison?

Because they are no longer reachable, and we would rather say so than rank them. Arcade serves only a placeholder page with its app and docs subdomains failing DNS resolution, and its own repository states that version four was never deployed to mainnet. Astaria returns a 404 with its app subdomain unresolvable. ParaSpace has been reclassified out of NFT lending entirely. Zharta files its NFT lending product under legacy in its own documentation. None of them has published a shutdown date, so none is stated here — what is stated is exactly what was reachable on the day this was checked.

REVIEWEDApr 2026METHOD4 criteriaCATEGORYnft_lending

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