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conference paper

Liquidations: DeFi on a Knife-Edge

Perez, Daniel
•
Werner, Sam M.
•
Xu, Jiahua  
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January 1, 2021
Financial Cryptography And Data Security, Fc 2021, Pt Ii
25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC)

The trustless nature of permissionless blockchains renders overcollateralization a key safety component relied upon by decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Nonetheless, factors such as price volatility may undermine this mechanism. In order to protect protocols from suffering losses, undercollateralized positions can be liquidated. In this paper, we present the first in-depth empirical analysis of liquidations on protocols for loanable funds (PLFs). We examine Compound, one of the most widely used PLFs, for a period starting from its conception to September 2020. We analyze participants' behavior and risk-appetite in particular, to elucidate recent developments in the dynamics of the protocol. Furthermore, we assess how this has changed with a modification in Compound's incentive structure and show that variations of only 3% in an asset's dollar price can result in over 10 m USD becoming liquidable. To further understand the implications of this, we investigate the efficiency of liquidators. We find that liquidators' efficiency has improved significantly over time, with currently over 70% of liquidable positions being immediately liquidated. Lastly, we provide a discussion on how a false sense of security fostered by a misconception of the stability of non-custodial stablecoins, increases the overall liquidation risk faced by Compound participants.

  • Details
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Type
conference paper
DOI
10.1007/978-3-662-64331-0_24
Web of Science ID

WOS:000712016200024

Author(s)
Perez, Daniel
Werner, Sam M.
Xu, Jiahua  
Livshits, Benjamin
Date Issued

2021-01-01

Publisher

SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN

Publisher place

Berlin

Published in
Financial Cryptography And Data Security, Fc 2021, Pt Ii
ISBN of the book

978-3-662-64331-0

978-3-662-64330-3

Series title/Series vol.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Volume

12675

Start page

457

End page

476

Subjects

Computer Science, Information Systems

•

Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications

•

Computer Science, Theory & Methods

•

Computer Science

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
SFI-SM  
SFI-GE  
Event nameEvent placeEvent date
25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC)

ELECTR NETWORK

Mar 01-05, 2021

Available on Infoscience
December 4, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/183608
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