I had heard of Ducat before, but didn't ever bother looking in to it. Then I saw this post on X claiming
For the first time, liquidations on Bitcoin are not only possible. They are public, enforceable, and profitable.
This made me curious. Especially because they say they are using Taproot to do it. One big question I have with the bitcoin loan companies is how their oracle works. Even if the liquidation process is 100% automated by some on-chain script, the oracle is the weak link: if someone manipulates it they can steal your bitcoin...which isn't so different from just giving your bitcoin to someone in return for a loan. I was curious if they have a solution to this problem.
Here is how they say it works:
a way to handle liquidations directly on Bitcoin Layer 1 by:
- encoding a liquidation path in a tap tree that requires the pre-image of a hash
- an oracle holds this pre-image but only reveals it when a threshold price has been hit
- the FROST signature from the Multi-party computation (MPC) network acts as a backstop against any malicious activity from the oracle and provides a second layer of authentication
The basic flow:
- A user opens a vault, deposits BTC, and mints UNIT
- If the value of BTC falls and their vault drops below 135 percent collateralisation, it becomes eligible for liquidation.
- Any liquidator can step in. No whitelist. No backroom deals.
- The liquidator recapitalises the vault with fresh BTC, takes ownership, and later repays the UNIT to unlock the collateral and collect their profit.
When the liquidator restores solvency and repays the debt, they receive discounted BTC in return.
Okay, so you send some of your bitcoin to an address and then they send you some stablecoin called UNIT, which I couldn't find much info about. Their docs for it are limited. There's this philosophy page. And this supply control page. It seems that UNIT tokens are runes?
The address you send your bitcoin to is kind of like the addresses used by Spark: it's a shared utxo that relies on FROST to give stakeholders shares of they key. I think this is why they claim that it's self-custodial a la this from their website:
Deposit as much BTC as you'd like to leverage within one of our vaults, and borrow UNIT against the vaulted BTC collateral.
- Non-Custodial
- Full Control of Funds
It may be non-custodial, but calling it full control makes no sense. If you can't unilaterally exit, then it isn't full control. And who in their right mind would give you full control over the collateral you used to get a loan? It isn't collateral if you can go spend it.