Bytepitch, the team building the Crabble NFT lending platform, have successfully deployed their contract to Agoric mainnet after their proposal had a passing vote. The second third-party application to launch on-chain on Agoric, Crabble offers a utility layer for NFTs on Agoric and soon the entire interchain. With Agoric’s ability to seamlessly orchestrate activity cross-chain by connecting to the IBC module and, as of Upgrade 13, manage Interchain Accounts (ICA), Crabble is in a position to become an interchain hub for NFTs.
What is Crabble?
Crabble is designed to address liquidity issues of NFTs with practical utility by allowing NFT owners to monetize their digital assets when they are not actively using them. Imagine an NFT representing a gym membership: the owner could use Crabble to rent that membership out while traveling so someone else could take advantage of the facilities. The concept extends beyond memberships. Any NFT with inherent utility is a candidate to generate additional income through short-term rentals.
How it works
Owners of NFTs list the tokens they want to rent out, set the availability and cost, and the Crabble platform handles the payment and transfer of assets when someone rents the NFT.
Rentals are backed by crypto collateral, determined by the NFT owner to help protect against potential losses during the rental period and to keep assets safe. Borrowers gain temporary access to utility without the full commitment of ownership, while owners can earn from assets that would otherwise be sitting idle.
Read more about Crabble and how it works on the Agoric forum.
Benefits from building on Agoric
Building an application on Agoric comes with a number of benefits out of the box. Agoric’s native interoperability through IBC and ICA means the Crabble developers aren’t limited to adding assets on only one chain–and neither are the users.
Because Crabble is built on Agoric, rental transactions are protected by Zoe enforcing Offer Safety in the background, assuring both parties get what they expect from the transaction or it doesn’t happen.
Alpha launch
This initial launch is focused on deploying the necessary contracts for Crabble on the Agoric chain–inventory to follow at a future date. The Crabble team will drive a future public application launch when they are ready for users to lend and borrow NFTs. The core contract launched with the following features:
Listing and Availability Management: Owners can effortlessly list and schedule their NFTs.
Rental Agreement Execution: Streamlined agreements between owners and borrowers.
Collateral Handling: Ensures the safety of NFTs during the rental period.
NFT Transfer Mechanism: Facilitates swift transfer of control for the rental duration.
Rental Termination and Asset Return: Guarantees the safe return of NFTs post-rental.
What’s next for Crabble?
BytePitch plans to make the codebase available on GitHub and to continue to develop a library of smart contract functions to support NFT lending and enhancing cross-chain interoperability with other platforms. By facilitating short-term rentals, Crabble is opening a world of possibilities for NFT owners and users alike on Agoric and across the interchain.
If you would like to unlock additional utility for your NFT collection and make it available on Crabble, contact us!
