Auto-loan explained: rules that watch your loan for you
How Firsthand auto-loan rules work: you set a target, the portal watches the position and proposes the action, and your wallet signs it.
Intermediate
A loan against bitcoin needs watching, and most of the trouble comes on the days nobody was looking. Auto-loan rules are Firsthand's answer: you decide in advance what should happen, the portal keeps watch, and when a rule is triggered it prepares the action for you to approve.
Careful: Borrowing against bitcoin can lose the collateral. Auto-loan rules help you react. They do not remove the risk, and they do not act without you. This guide is education, not advice.
Good to know: This feature is being rolled out and may be switched off for your account. If the Borrow page does not show rules yet, nothing is wrong: it has not reached your account.
The idea in three steps
You set a target. For example: keep the health factor above a level you choose. Or: repay a fixed share of each month's mining income.
The portal watches the position. It reads your loan from the network, where it is public, and compares it with your target.
The portal proposes, your wallet signs. When a rule is triggered, the portal prepares the transaction and tells you. You review it and sign it in your own wallet. Until you sign, nothing moves.
What Firsthand does and does not do
Firsthand Bitcoin never holds your keys. They stay in your wallet.
Firsthand Bitcoin never holds your collateral. It sits in the lending protocol, under your address.
Nothing moves without your signature. The portal cannot borrow, repay, add or withdraw on its own.
The portal does not choose your target and does not tell you how much to borrow. Those decisions are yours.
Examples of rules
Rule
What triggers it
What the portal proposes
Keep the health factor above my level
The health factor drops under the level you chose
A partial repayment or a collateral top-up, sized to get back above it
Repay a share of mining income
A new month of mining is recorded
A repayment for the share you set
Tell me early
The health factor crosses a warning level
An alert only, no transaction
Good to know: These are examples of the kind of rule the feature is built around. The rules available on your account are the ones the Borrow page shows.
What it means that you sign
Because every action needs your signature, a rule is only as fast as you are. If the health factor falls at night and you sign in the morning, the price may have moved again. Treat the rules as a watchman and a prepared plan, not as an autopilot.
Set your warning level high enough to leave time to act.
Keep what the action needs in the wallet: the loan's currency for a repayment, wrapped bitcoin for a top-up, and enough for network fees.
Keep the wallet you sign with within reach, and its backup safe. See Seed phrase safety.
Read every transaction before you sign: the amount, the asset and the address.