According to PANews, lenders using the decentralized financial protocol Goldfinch have been hit hard after the default of large borrower Lend East. Lend East had obtained loans worth $10.2 million through the support of Goldfinch users, but was only able to repay about $4.25 million and is expected to default on the remaining $5.9 million when the loan expires. Warbler Labs, the company behind the Goldfinch protocol, is hiring external legal counsel to explore all rights and remedies available to the community to maximize recovery. This is the third default suffered by users since the Goldfinch protocol began operating in January 2021. Critics say repeated defaults highlight the difficulty of underwriting loans for emerging markets and expose serious problems with the Goldfinch protocol model. Goldfinch users said that the initial credit assessment of Lend East loans was "poorly implemented" and that neither Goldfinch nor Lend East had provided backers with updated information about the loans in the past year.