Dharma Announces Closed Beta for Version 2 of Lending Platform

San Francisco-based crypto lending and borrowing firm Dharma has announced the start of a closed beta for a new version of its platform.

Upcoming changes and short-term timeline

Dharma announced its new platform iteration in an official blog post on Aug. 29. According to the announcement, Dharma has partnered with the Ethereum-based money market Compound and will reportedly use its protocol as infrastructure for the new platform. Additionally, Dharma will now make its smart contracts open source prior to production, per the announcement.

Dharma V2 is currently in closed beta, which means that it is only accessible to existing Dharma users. However, the company plans to open up the beta within weeks for further testing. Moreover, Dharma announced a number of new features they aim to push out including a non-custodial and multisig smart wallet, dedicated deposit addresses, and frictionless fiat on-ramps and off-ramps.

Previous issues and a new chapter

According to the announcement, Dharma decided to start from scratch on its platform due to technical issues and security concerns. The company reported that they were “plagued with reliability issues across the platform and had limited confidence in the security of the system,” although they note that the security of user funds were never compromised. 

Dharma’s initial stated goal was to construct a “standardized, generic rails for peer-to-peer lending on Ethereum” with many user-requested features.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Dharma ultimately moved to halt new deposits and loans on its platform at the beginning of August, but promised that a “new chapter” was coming soon. The company wrote:

“For now, we're pausing new deposits and loans in Dharma. If you have an existing deposit or loan with Dharma, you'll still be able to access your account and will have the option to withdraw any funds that are not currently locked up.”