The Complete Salt Lending (SALT) Review

What is SALT?

Some time not long ago, people had to keep some of their precious assets so that they could borrow a small amount of money. Today, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Siacoin are in vogue and they have the potential to replace cash currencies in the financial markets as time progresses.

Introducing the SALT lending platform — an automated lending platform that allows its holders obtain cash loans against a collateral of their cryptocurrencies. Although there are companies that now offer digital currency borrowing and lending services, SALT is unique in that it is automated, which makes it more secure compared to others. SALT aims to challenge the traditional way of borrowing and lending, instead adopting a new system by virtue of the cryptocurrency world we are now in. With SALT, there is no more need for filling long loan application forms or waiting hours for loan approval.

Rather than borrow future earnings, you can use your digital assets. An important part of digital lending and borrowing is that there is no need to represent any guarantor as your staked blockchain assets are proof that you can repay. SALT is, in essence, the bridge between a fast expanding blockchain economy with traditional financial systems.

History of Salt

Salt was founded in 2016. In the beginning, they started a capital funding round where they managed to raise only $1 million, which was not enough to start a platform like SALT. To raise more funds, the executive members contributed personal funds for the development. In March 2017, SALT set up the loan agreement and launched the lending platform in the same year.

As a SALT member, SALT tokens are needed to be able to access the lending platform. On the platform, you can exchange SALT tokens for services, products and other goods. The borrowing and lending process is hassle-free, which is why SALT membership is in high demand and more people are searching for how to become SALT members.

SALT Team

There are 25 members of the SALT team, of which 5 are founding partners. They include: Shawn Owen — CEO of SALT, a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in enterprise operations and an early advocate of Bitcoin, Phil Cowan — (CTO) experienced in development and design solutions, Ben Yablon — (Chief Strategy Officer), with 15 years of legal experience in emerging financial technologies, board director Erik Voorhees — CEO and Founder of ShapeShift, and earlier founder of Satoshi Dice.

How Does SALT Work?

To secure loans based on crypto-assets with SALT, digital assets are held in the form of collateral. The following four steps explain how to do this and receive cash into your account.

1. Create Loan Account

As a borrower, you first have to create a SALT membership account, after which digital currency can be moved and used as collateral in the SALT Oracle Wallet: a multi-signature wallet that acts as a store of collateral and automatically manages lending terms.

2. Funds Transferred to Your Bank Account

As soon as you are done with the first step, your loan is processed and approved. The loan funds are immediately transferred to your bank account.

3. Repay Loan Amount

Having borrowed money from a lender, it is important that it is repaid in a timely manner, especially when it is structured as periodic payments to the lenders. This is necessary when you consider that the lender conducts no background checks and offers loans without guarantees, except the held digital asset collateral.

4. Fate of Collateral Assets

Having repaid the entire amount loaned, you can take back your collateral and keep it with you in your account.

SALT Oracle

Smart contracts for each loan are created by the SALT Oracle. To lower default risk, the Oracle records loan payments and monitors the changing value of crypto collateral. There is a loan-to-value ratio for every loan and it is calculated in the loan terms. The ratio is the amount of the loan divided by the collateral amount. The ratio decreases as the loan is being paid off. However, if the collateral value decreases, the ratio increases. Should the ratio increase beyond initial loan-to-value ratio, you’ll have to provide more collateral or pay-off an additional amount of the loan until the ratio returns to the original level

SALT Oracle Wallet

As mentioned earlier, the SALT Oracle wallet is a multi-signature blockchain wallet that allows for automatic storage of collateral and can apply the lending terms. The name SALT stands for Secured Automated Lending Technology because of this. Other key features of the wallet include:

• Monitoring of the loan and the payments the borrower makes to the lender.
• Generating alerts in the case that the value of the blockchain assets falls below the set threshold.
• Monitoring of the value of the blockchain assets kept as collateral
• Storing of collateral until the loan terms are fulfilled.
• Based on the loan terms, it disperses or liquidates collateral.
• Triggering of maintenance calls.

SALT Competitors

With friends also come enemies. Some of SALT’s competitors include Othera, EthLend, Unchained Capital and Everex. While users of these platforms can hold digital assets and get a fast loan, they have their differences, especially with regards to their way of lending and borrowing hard cash in exchange for digital assets.

How to Buy and Store SALT

SALT can be purchased from popular exchanges like Binance and Bittrex. You need to first have Bitcoin or Ethereum to trade SALT on any of these exchanges. However, users who don’t have any of them can quickly purchase them using traditional currency on an exchange like Gemini and transfer it over.

As an ERC20 currency, SALT can be stored in many Ethereum wallets, but one wallet that is recommended is the Jaxx Wallet, which is available in mobile and desktop versions. Other options include MyEtherWallet, Ledger Nano S, etc.

Conclusion

SALT is changing traditional lending and borrowing. Beyond this, it is doing very well in the investment sector too. Its membership plans are in high demand within the crypto-community. People are glad to now exchange digital currency through a lending and borrowing platform that is seamless and fast.