BNB Chain’s Second-Largest DeFi Protocol Venus to Accept Floki Tokens as Lending Collateral

Tokens of Shiba Inu-themed Floki can soon be used as collateral to borrow a basket of cryptocurrencies on Venus Protocol, the second-largest lending platform on the BNB Chain, Floki developers told CoinDesk on Friday.

The move is part of a broader plan to make FLOKI, which was originally a meme coin named after billionaire Elon Musk's pet dog, as a serious decentralized-finance (DeFi) token.

Venus provides a simple-to-use crypto asset lending and borrowing product that allows users to directly borrow against collateral at a high speed while losing less to transaction fees. It held over $800 million in locked tokens as of Friday.

Venus will be integrating FLOKI in its money-market platform, thereby allowing FLOKI holders on the BNB Chain to borrow USDT, USDC, BNB and a basket of other cryptocurrencies while using their FLOKI tokens as collateral.

This allows FLOKI token holders to easily access liquidity without having to sell their tokens.

The move is expected to benefit FLOKI holders, developers say, as they continue to build and seek strategic partnerships that ultimately benefit the token’s value.

The FLOKI integration process on Venus has started, and is expected to be completed in March. After that, FLOKI holders will be able to seamlessly lend and borrow on Venus while using their FLOKI tokens as collateral.

FLOKI has so far been one of the strongest crypto performers this year, tripling in value over a 30-day rolling period, according to CoinGecko. Interest in the tokens has heightened in recent months following a $100 million token burn and a push to target Valhalla, Floki’s metaverse game, to the multibillion-dollar Chinese gaming market.