The pain points of a bitcoin user seeking a loan: walk into a bank, present personal financial statements, and face a head-scratching banker uncertain of the cryptocurrency’s asset status.

This is according to Shawn Owen (pictured), chief executive officer of Salt Lending Holdings Inc. “In fact, the technology makes a perfect form of collateral. We have all this ability to program in smart contracts. You can write in the rules. You can make it highly secure, yet nobody is doing it,” Owen said. “Somebody’s got to bridge that gap.”

Owen spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Polycon18 event in The Bahamas. They discussed software-based monies and a new world of lending practices.

Salt Lend Holdings Inc. is building technology that helps bring the world of lending to crypto markets. Salt — short for Secure Automated Lending Technology — claims to be the first asset-backed lending platform to give blockchain asset holders access to liquidity without them having to sell their tokens.

Today, Salt is working through the lending process. As distributed ledgers in blockchains become the norm, the currency that is to be used will be based on the need, according to Owen.

“So you can imagine a wallet where you have all the things you really care about and you can dynamically decide what your currency is based off where you’re traveling, where you want to spend, what you think is happening with inflation, depending on what your interest is,” he said.

Addressing volatility

There are certainly valuation issues at stake. The two key areas his company is solving for the blockchain are security and the interface. Developing smart contracts help build the loan instruments, Owen explained. And, instead of just writing formalized legal documents, they are setting it into the code they use with their own tokens.

A SALT token is for the borrower. It’s an internal currency, where the borrower has a serial number, a key to access the product, and an opportunity to redeem the tokens for accrued value. Built into the SALT token is auditability and traceability to help reduce scam attempts, Owen stated.

So far, Salt has issued $30 million in loans in states where they are approved. The company is looking to partner with banks and financial institutions. To date, Salt names clients in Puerto Rico, Canada and Europe.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Polycon18.

Photo: SiliconANGLE