How to Use a Decentralized Lending Platform on Solana

Written by Aguchukwu Emmanuel Ebube

Reviewed by Brady Werkheiser

Published on December 2, 20222 min read

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Port Finance is a non-custodial lending protocol on the Solana blockchain. It leverages the speed and efficiency of the blockchain to introduce new features to the Solana ecosystem. Users have the ability to lend and borrow assets and have the flexibility of adjusting different features while doing so.

With a current TVL over $7 million dollars, Port Finance is as one of the most popular DeFi lending platforms in the Solana ecosystem. This article will show you how to make your first deposit on Port Finance through a step-by-step process.

1. Download and Install Phantom

Phantom is the most popular wallet for Solana. While there are several others like Solflare and Backpack, this tutorial will be making use of Phantom.

1. Go to Phantom‍

2. Download and install Phantom as a browser extension (Chrome, Firefox, Brave, and Edge) for PCs

3. Create a new wallet

4. Save your secret recovery phrase

Note: Never share your recovery phrase with anyone. Losing your seed phrase means losing access to all your funds.

2. Fund Your Phantom Wallet

Once you have your wallet, the goal is to deposit funds in the wallet in order to lend them on Port Finance.

1. Open your wallet and click the dropdown button

2. Copy your wallet address

3. Go to your favorite crypto exchange platform (e.g. Coinbase, Binance, etc)

4. Buy the desired Solana token you want to lend

5. Withdraw your newly purchased Solana SPL tokens to your wallet address

3. Connect Phantom to Port Finance

Now that you have funds in your Phantom wallet, we need to connect the wallet to Port Finance's website.

1. Go to Port Finance‍

2. Click on the app or “Go to app button”

3. Select your Phantom wallet

4. Click confirm

‍After you confirm your wallet, you will get a notification that your connection is successful. 

4. Understand the User Interface

From the lending platform, you can see the different assets available to lend and borrow on the Port Finance marketplace.

Each asset has the following information:

• Market size - the amount of assets available on Port Finance

• Deposit APY - the annual percentage yield for making deposits of that asset

• Total Borrowed - the total amount of the assets that have been borrowed

• Borrow APY - the annual interest rate when you borrow an asset (i.e. the amount you’re required to pay back when you borrow an asset)

• Wallet - the amount of assets you have in your wallet

5. Lend on Port Finance

Now that you're familiar with Port Finance's user interface, lend your desired tokens.

1. Click on the deposits/borrows tab

2. Select the asset you wish to deposit (e.g. USDT)

3. Specify the amount of assets you want to spend

4. Click on deposit

5. Approve the transaction in Phantom

To lend assets on Port Finance, you need to have some Solana (SOL) in your Phantom wallet to pay for transaction fees. Once the transaction is submitted, you will receive a notification that your transaction is successful.