Filecoin’s cryptocurrency, FIL, is the native token powering its network. That means FIL is used to pay for storage and retrieval, and for any other transactions on the network.

A user who owns $FIL can become a lender and then make their $FIL available for loans. The lender's position can be filled by multiple borrowers. The lender can redeem the borrower rates to repay the loan once a month.

A borrower chooses the best loan for their need from among the available (as yet unfilled) loans based on their needs of becoming a Storage Provider. A borrower repays their debt from the rewards of storage providing on Filecoin.