IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/1171.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

DeFi leverage

Author

Listed:
  • Lioba Heimbach
  • Wenqian Huang

Abstract

In decentralized finance (DeFi), lending protocols are governed by predefined algorithms that facilitate automatic loans – allowing users to take on leverage. This paper examines DeFi leverage – ie the asset-to-equity ratio at the wallet level in major lending platforms. The overall leverage typically ranges between 1.4 and 1.9, while the largest and most active users consistently exhibit higher leverage than the rest. Leverage is mainly driven by loan-to-value requirements and borrowing costs, as well as crypto market price movements and sentiments. Higher wallet leverage generally undermines lending resilience, particularly increasing the share of outstanding debt close to being liquidated. Borrowers with high leverage are more likely to tilt towards volatile collateral when their debt positions are about to be liquidated.

Suggested Citation

  • Lioba Heimbach & Wenqian Huang, 2024. "DeFi leverage," BIS Working Papers 1171, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1171.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1171.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Stefan Nagel & Dmitry Orlov, 2014. "Sizing Up Repo," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2381-2417, December.
    2. Infante, Sebastian, 2019. "Liquidity windfalls: The consequences of repo rehypothecation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 42-63.
    3. Lin William Cong & Zhiguo He, 2019. "Blockchain Disruption and Smart Contracts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1754-1797.
    4. Francesca Carapella & Edward Dumas & Jacob Gerszten & Nathan Swem, 2022. "Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Transformative Potential and Associated Risks," Policy Hub, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 2022(14), October.
    5. Ang, Andrew & Gorovyy, Sergiy & van Inwegen, Gregory B., 2011. "Hedge fund leverage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 102-126, October.
    6. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2021. "Blockchain analysis of the Bitcoin market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118897, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Raphael Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Sebastian Doerr & Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta, 2022. "Crypto trading and Bitcoin prices: evidence from a new database of retail adoption," BIS Working Papers 1049, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2014. "Endogenous Collateral Constraints and the Leverage Cycle," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 771-799, August.
    9. Viral V. Acharya & S. Viswanathan, 2011. "Leverage, Moral Hazard, and Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 99-138, February.
    10. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2021. "Blockchain Analysis of the Bitcoin Market," NBER Working Papers 29396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Francesca Carapella & Nathan Swem, 2022. "Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Transformative Potential & Associated Risks," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-057, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Adam Copeland & Antoine Martin & Michael Walker, 2014. "Repo Runs: Evidence from the Tri-Party Repo Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2343-2380, December.
    13. Patrick M McGuire & Kostas Tsatsaronis, 2008. "Estimating hedge fund leverage," BIS Working Papers 260, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Sirio Aramonteand & Wenqian Huang & Andreas Schrimpf, 2021. "DeFi risks and the decentralisation illusion," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    15. Bige Kahraman & Heather E. Tookes, 2017. "Trader Leverage and Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1567-1610, August.
    16. John Geanakoplos, 2001. "Liquidity, Default and Crashes: Endogenous Contracts in General Equilibrium," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1316, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chang, Jin-Wook, 2021. "Contagion in Debt and Collateral Markets," MPRA Paper 111131, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Karlis, Alexandros & Galanis, Girogos & Terovitis, Spyridon & Turner, Matthew, 2017. "Heterogeneity and Clustering of Defaults," Economic Research Papers 270011, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. Fukai, Hiroki, 2021. "Optimal interventions on strategic fails in repo markets," MPRA Paper 106090, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Tim Weingärtner & Fabian Fasser & Pedro Reis Sá da Costa & Walter Farkas, 2023. "Deciphering DeFi: A Comprehensive Analysis and Visualization of Risks in Decentralized Finance," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-25, October.
    5. Sriya Anbil & Alyssa G. Anderson & Zeynep Senyuz, 2021. "Are Repo Markets Fragile? Evidence from September 2019," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-028, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Schuler, Katrin & Nadler, Matthias & Schär, Fabian, 2023. "Contagion and loss redistribution in crypto asset markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    7. A. K. Karlis & G. Galanis & S. Terovitis & M. S. Turner, 2021. "Heterogeneity and clustering of defaults," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(9), pages 1533-1549, September.
    8. Katherine Baer & Ruud De Mooij & Shafik Hebous & Michael Keen, 2023. "Taxing cryptocurrencies," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 39(3), pages 478-497.
    9. Lewis, Kurt F. & Longstaff, Francis A. & Petrasek, Lubomir, 2021. "Asset mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 981-1006.
    10. Pietro Saggese & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Burkhard Raunig & Felix Zangerl & Bernhard Haslhofer, 2023. "Assessing the Solvency of Virtual Asset Service Providers: Are Current Standards Sufficient?," Papers 2309.16408, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    11. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2023. "Decentralization through Tokenization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 247-299, February.
    12. Kruttli, Mathias S. & Monin, Phillip J. & Watugala, Sumudu W., 2022. "The life of the counterparty: Shock propagation in hedge fund-prime broker credit networks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 965-988.
    13. Karau, Sören, 2023. "Monetary policy and Bitcoin," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Mr. Manmohan Singh, 2011. "Velocity of Pledged Collateral: Analysis and Implications," IMF Working Papers 2011/256, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Corradin, Stefano & Heider, Florian & Hoerova, Marie, 2017. "On collateral: implications for financial stability and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2107, European Central Bank.
    16. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies and Decentralised Finance," BIS Working Papers 1061, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Bernhard Haslhofer & Burkhard Raunig & Pietro Saggase & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Felix Zangerl, 2023. "Assessing the Solvency of Virtual Asset Service Providers: Are Current Standards Sufficient? (Pietro Saggese, Esther Segalla, Michael Sigmund, Burkhard Raunig, Felix Zangerl, Bernhard Haslhofer)," Working Papers 248, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    18. Viktoria Baklanova & Cecilia Caglio & Marco Cipriani & Adam Copeland, 2019. "The Use of Collateral in Bilateral Repurchase and Securities Lending Agreements," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 33, pages 228-249, July.
    19. Mr. Manmohan Singh, 2012. "The (Other) Deleveraging," IMF Working Papers 2012/179, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Fernando Avalos & Ramon Moreno & Tania Romero, 2015. "Leverage on the buy side," BIS Working Papers 517, Bank for International Settlements.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    leverage; collateralised borrowing; decentralised finance; automated algorithm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • O36 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Open Innovation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.