Bitcoin-backed loans. Finally done right.
Get cash. Keep your bitcoin. Stay in charge.
I have bitcoin
I have free cashFirefish for borrowers
Firefish is built different. Just like bitcoin itself.
As bitcoiners, we have found ourselves in situations where we needed money for investments or personal use. However, we never felt comfortable handing over our bitcoin collateral to a centralized lender. That is why we launched Firefish – a bitcoin-backed lending platform based on self-custody, decentralization, and ease of use.
Benefits
No custody 
You retain control of your bitcoin by placing it in an on-chain multi-signature contract, rather than relinquishing your private keys.
Real cash
You receive the money in your bank account just like a regular loan. No stablecoins involved.
Decentralized lending
Loans are made on a bilateral basis between members of the platform, rather than through a central lender.
Transparency
The Firefish protocol and most of its implementation code are open source.
Bitcoin native
The platform is powered by the bitcoin network, with no reliance on sidechains or smart contract platforms.
Bureaucracy free
If you have bitcoin, you have credit, with no need for additional income verification.
Lock your bitcoin and unlock its full power.
How it works
Lock your
Bitcoin
Use our platform to securely lock your bitcoin on specific multi-signature address, which secures your loan until you pay it back.
Receive
Cash
Conveniently receive the loan funds in your bank account, similar to a traditional loan.
Repay and unlock
your Bitcoin
Once you repay the loan, your bitcoin will be automatically released from the escrow and returned to your personal wallet.
Our strengths
Do not sell your bitcoin. Use it to achieve your goals.
- Buy a house or complete a renovation.
- Take a nice vacation.
- Buy more bitcoin.
- Make a large purchase (e.g. car or mining equipment).
- Seize an investment opportunity.
Tax benefits
Taking out a loan with Firefish won’t trigger any capital gains tax, unlike when you sell your bitcoin and may be subject to such taxes.
Fit for HODL
If you are interested in potentially benefiting from future price appreciation of bitcoin, a Firefish loan can allow you to maintain or even increase your bitcoin exposure.
Testimonies
“Bitcoiners need a way to make use of their investment without doing the worst thing - selling their Bitcoin. Firefish is a great Bitcoin-native way to use Bitcoin as a collateral without selling it, built by Bitcoiners.”Juraj Bednár
enterpreneur, educator
“Firefish is an exceptional team. They have built a service that does it right compared to centralized solutions.”Ondřej Raška
Founding partner at Miton
“After thorough analysis I concluded that the design is very secure, paranoid even. All hard core Bitcoiners should really enjoy it!.”Kixunil
Bitcoiner. Rust-bitcoin contributor
The difference
 | Custodial lenders | DeFi | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No custody | |  | |
| Real time collateral transparency | | | |
| No collatelar rehypotecation | | | |
| Real cash | | | |
| Peer-to-peer | | | |
| Brinding/wrapping free | | | |
FAQ
loans essential knowledge.
- To secure your loan, we require you to place your bitcoin in a designated multi-signature escrow address. This escrow can only be accessed in two ways: returned to your wallet (e.g. if you pay back the loan) or transferred to the liquidator's address (e.g. if you don't repay the loan by the due date).
- After a certain date in the future (the loan maturity date plus a buffer period), you can retrieve your bitcoin from the escrow and send it back to your private wallet without any further interaction with anyone. Even if the Firefish platform no longer exists, you will still be able to access your bitcoin.
- For the loan to be safe for both you and the investor, it's important that the value of the collateral always exceeds the value of the loan.
- If the value of your bitcoin falls close to the value of the loan (for example, due to a drop in the bitcoin exchange rate), your bitcoin will be sold on the open market and the proceeds used to pay off the loan. This process is called liquidation.
- You have the option to add more bitcoin to the collateral to avoid liquidation. You can also pay off the loan early at any time to avoid liquidation.