FAQ

GENERAL

Q: Why would I list my NFT using guchi.io?

You have an NFT, believe in its long term prospects, but want to earn some extra yield and/or tap into some liquidity, while being protected if the price of the collection that NFT belongs to goes up (to a certain point).

Q: Why would I borrow an NFT using guchi.io?

You believe a NFT collection is overpriced, its price will be going down before the time period of the contract expires, and you wish to profit from that.

Q: How does shorting work?

Imagine two parties, Alice and Bob. Alice owns 10 ducks. Bob believes ducks are overpriced, and will be worth less in the future. Alice can lend her ducks to Bob for a fee. Bob goes to the market, and sells the ducks for $100 each, netting $1,000. If tomorrow, the price of ducks goes down, let’s say to $90, Bob can buy 10 ducks for $900, take them back to Alice and repay her the ducks he owes her. Bob has made $100 from the price of ducks going down. If the price of ducks were to go up, Bob would have to spend more money to repay Alice than he got for selling the ducks.

Q: How does shorting an NFT work?

NFTs introduce an interesting wrinkle to the above, because by definition they are not fungible. The lender could just buy the asset when the borrower goes to sell it, then refuse to sell it for any price and claim the collateral in the contract. As a solution to this, our initial service is a “short the floor” contract: when you lend an NFT using our contracts, you are guaranteed to get back one of two things:

• Another NFT from the policy ID that you initialized the contract with OR
• The collateral of the contract (if the borrower walks away)

Q: What is a "guchi"?

Guchi (口) is used in the Japanese word "iriguchi/入口" (entrance) and "出口/deguchi" (exit), as we will basically be allowing users to enter/exit NFT positions it seemed fitting. Literally it means mouth/portal/opening.

Q: What am I doing when using guchi.io?

When using our site, you are browsing public data and transaction logic that exist on the Cardano blockchain. Smart contracts allow for transactions between you and a counter-party you engage with. guchi.io is a permissionless interface which merely assists users in viewing this data and building transactions which conform to that logic. The site makes no claims nor offers any indemnity against any losses you incur. guchi.io is entirely noncustodial and customer assets never enter its possession. Instead, users maintain control of their assets throughout their interactions with the set of contracts underpinning the guchi.io protocol.

LENDERS

Q: How am I protected?

Borrowers have to deposit collateral into the smart contract in order to get your NFT. As long as the floor price is below the collateral (which you choose) the borrower has an incentive to return an NFT with the same policy ID to the contract. If the floor rises above your collateral, they likely will not, but you have effectively sold your NFT for the collateral price.

Q: How should I set my parameters?

Lenders compete against each other in an open market. If you want someone to borrow your NFT, you should price your contract competitively compared to other listings on guchi.io, and especially compared to other listings in the same collection.

Q: What is my fee?

Whatever you want it to be. It is a flat amount that you get to keep regardless of the outcome of the contract. For a longer duration contract it would be reasonable to expect a higher fee.

BORROWERS

Q: How do I get my collateral back?

By sending an NFT with the same policy ID back to the contract you borrowed it from.

Q: How can I make a profit using guchi.io?

If you believe the price of a project will go down before the contract expires:

1. Send collateral to a listing to get the NFT of a project you think will go down in price
2. Take the NFT, sell it on a marketplace (jpg.store, etc)
3. Wait for the price to go down on that collection
4. Buy the cheapest NFT you can find with the same policy ID, use it to claim back your collateral

Even though you want the price to go down, you are incentivized to sell the NFT in question for the maximum price you can, as your profit will be whatever you can sell the NFT for, minus whatever you can buy a replacement for.

CONTRACTS

Q: What is collateral? (AKA “downside protection”)

Our way of incentivizing shorters to come back to the smart contract. As long as the floor of a project is below the collateral amount, the shorter has an incentive to close out the contract in order to limit their losses. If the floor goes beyond the collateral amount, it is likely the shorter will not return any NFT, in which case the lender can claim the collateral when the contract expires.

Q: What is the duration?

How long the borrower has to return an NFT to the contract, or have the collateral claimable by the lender. The creator of an offer gets to decide how long they are willing to lend out their NFT for, and a lenders and borrowers should consider if the contract will be favorable to them for the given time window. Contracts with longer durations are generally more “valuable” to borrowers as it is more likely that the price will move into a profitable range before the contract expires. Duration is NOT how long a listing will be active before it finds a counterparty, listings stay up until engaged or cancelled by their creator.

Q: What is the return address?

This is the address that must be paid to satisfy the conditions of the smart contract. We have it listed, because it should be a DIFFERENT address for every listing that you make (or engage with) using guchi.io. If it wasn't, it would technically be possible in some cases that an attacker could pay ONE of their obligations and fulfill TWO or more contracts, what's known as a double satisfaction attack.

Q: What if I use single-address mode (Nami/etc)?

You should only have one active engagement on guchi.io at a time. We recommend switching to a multi-address wallet for this reason.

FEEs

Q: What are your fees?

This is a flat % of the collateral that the LENDER receives as soon as two parties (A lender accepts a borrow offer, or a borrower accepts a lend offer) engage in an offer.

Additionally, guchi.io receives a flat 2% on top of the collateral (offer price for a HODL), paid by the borrower.

Finally, it's not a "fee" but there is a 10ADA deposit in every listing/HODL that sits in any listing to be used for sending out NFTs to a counterparty whenever necessary. The initiator will receive this back by the end of the contract.

Q: What about cancellation fees?

There is a 2ADA fee to cancel an unengaged listing. This is primarily meant to reduce spam/low-quality listings, not as a source of revenue.

Q: How else does guchi.io make money?

We stake the funds using a stake key, so we derive 100% of the staking rewards for the TVL in our contract.

NFTs

Q: What is an NFT?

On Cardano an NFT is just a Native Token that there is only 1 of. Tokens on Cardano are able to be minted according to the rules in their Policy ID. Anyone can upload the same content/image that is in an NFT, but only Tokens minted under the same Policy ID can be cryptographically ensured to be genuine.

Q: What is a Policy ID?

Essentially it is kind of like the private key to your personal wallet, on the blockchain your private keys sign transactions you initiate to send ADA or any token to another address. The private keys of a Policy ID ensure that only someone with those keys can mint Tokens using that Policy ID. guchi.io is able to operate on all native assets by “fungible-izing” an NFT collection to be interchangeable within a Policy ID.

Q: Are royalties supported?

We are working looking for ways to support royalties given our deployment constraints. Borrowing and returning an asset is not technically selling. Furthermore, it is likely that a user will execute two transactions every time they use this site: once when selling the asset they borrow, and again when they buy an asset to repay their loan.