Fira launches fixed-rate DeFi lending market with $450M in deposits

Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Fira said on Tuesday it was launching with about $450 million in deposits, highlighting demand for fixed-rate onchain credit.

Fira said the protocol’s fixed-rate credit market allows users to lock borrowing costs and lending returns for defined periods by organizing lending around maturities rather than floating utilization-based rates, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The fixed-rate model differs from most DeFi lending protocols, where borrowers annot lock funding costs, and lenders cannot predict returns, making long-term DeFi lending less predictable. Fira’s said its model organizes markets by maturity and determines interest rates by supply and demand mechanics, replacing utilization algorithms that fluctuate with borrowing activity.

Fira said the design is intended to create a more predictable onchain credit market by introducing yield curves and defined maturities, features that are standard in traditional fixed-income markets but rare in DeFi.

Fira is not the first DeFi lending protocol built around fixed-rate credit. Other protocols with similar structures include Notional Finance, IPOR and Term Finance.

Fira debuts fixed-rate onchain credit market. Source: Fira

Euler-linked liquidity migrated into Fira

Fira said it debuted with $450 million in deposits, which were “reallocated” from users of the modular lending platform Euler Finance during the pre-launch phase that started on Jan. 8, Pete Siegel, chief financial officer at Fira, told Cointelegraph.

“Fira was pre-launched in January. It opened with a first market called UZR, which enabled roughly a thousand users who were already on Euler, in a product available on Euler to migrate their assets at a fixed rate.”

Siegel said the deposits were a sign of “real demand” for users seeking DeFi lending products with more predictable rates.

DeFi lending protocol rankings by TVL. Source: DeFiLlama

DefiLlama currently shows Fira with about $451.6 million in total value locked on Ethereum, compared with roughly $25.3 billion for Aave, the sector’s largest lending protocol.

Related: Maestro launches mining-backed Bitcoin credit market for institutions

Fira said its smart contracts have undergone six independent security audits conducted by Sherlock, Spearbit via Cantina, Hexens and yAudit between November 2025 and early 2026.

Fira’s bug bounty program through Sherlock offers up to $500,000 in rewards for users finding critical vulnerabilities in the protocol’s open-source Ethereum-based smart contracts.

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