Borrow
Borrowing turns collateral you have supplied into spendable dollars without selling it. USDG is the only borrowable asset.
Loans are overcollateralised: the value you post always exceeds the value you draw, and the difference is what protects the pool if prices move against you. There is no term and no repayment schedule, you repay when you choose, and interest accrues until you do.
How much you can borrow
Your limit is the smallest of several constraints, not just your collateral value:
- Collateral value at oracle prices, multiplied by that asset's max LTV
- Minus USDG already borrowed, plus the interest it has accrued
- Capped by the reserve's isolation debt ceiling, a protocol-wide USDG limit on total debt against that collateral, shared by everyone using it
- Capped by remaining room under the USDG borrow cap
- Capped by the free USDG liquidity in the pool at that moment
- The resulting health factor must stay above 1.0. The app blocks an amount that would make the position immediately liquidatable
The debt ceiling is the one that surprises people: it is global, so a reserve can be at its ceiling even when your own position has plenty of headroom. The market page shows how much of each ceiling is used.
Step by step
- 1Supply collateral and enable it. Enabling is a separate transaction on an isolated reserve. See Supply.
- 2Open the USDG market. At app.zona.finance/lend, select the USDG row and switch the control panel to Borrow.
- 3Choose an amount. The percentage buttons work off your borrowing limit, not your wallet. 100% means the maximum the protocol will allow.
Illustrative example · amounts and APYs are not live
USDG- 4Read the projected health factor. The panel shows what it becomes after the borrow, not what it is now. Judge the transaction on the projection.
- 5Borrow. Confirm in your wallet. USDG arrives in your balance and a variable-debt token records what you owe. Interest starts accruing immediately.
When borrowing is unavailable
The typical borrowing window is Sunday 8:00pm to Friday 8:00pm ET. New borrowing closes outside the approved calendar, during holiday and early-close blackouts, when the certificate or monitoring proof expires, or when the live USDG gate fails. Your chosen collateral must also have a valid price and borrowing power enabled.
An asset restriction sets that stock's LTV to zero, so you cannot open or increase a loan against it even if the pool is open. It can recover after 30 continuous minutes of healthy checks, provided no governance hold is active. Check both the pool's borrowing status and your stock's status in the app; the clock alone does not confirm availability. A borrowing-hours or monitoring closure leaves liquidation and health checks available while the required prices remain valid. A zero-LTV restriction can also limit collateral withdrawals while you have debt.
If the collateral feed is too old, halted by the issuer or fails another adapter check, valuation-dependent actions for that collateral also stop. Repaying and adding collateral continue to work.
Your health factor may also be unreadable during those periods. That is expected: the app still offers repay and top-up, and those are the actions that matter while you cannot see the number. Full behaviour on Prices & Market Hours.
USDG interest-rate curve
USDG uses a variable rate that rises with pool utilisation. The current strategy has a 92% optimal utilisation point. Below it, the rate rises gradually. Above it, the curve becomes steeper to encourage repayment and new supply when withdrawable liquidity is low.
| Parameter | Deployed value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Base variable rate | 0.50% | Rate at zero utilisation |
| Optimal utilisation | 92% | Point where the steep segment begins |
| Rate at target | 3.00% | Base rate plus the first 2.50% slope |
| Rate at 100% utilisation | 23.00% | Maximum variable rate, reached only at full utilisation |
| Reserve factor | 10% | Share of borrower interest retained by the protocol |
These are contract parameters, not promised returns. The app converts the current onchain rate into the APY it displays.
After borrowing
- Debt grows on its own. Interest accrues continuously, including while the market is closed, so your health factor drifts down even in a flat market. A position left alone for months is not the position you opened.
- The rate is variable and rises with utilisation. A pool drawn down hard can become materially more expensive within a day.
- Two ways to recover a slipping position: repay debt, or add collateral. Both work at any hour, including while prices are unavailable.
- Keep ETH for gas. A wallet with collateral, debt and no gas cannot defend itself.
For what happens if the position does go under, read Liquidations.