- >Best Crypto Lending
- >Crypto.com Lending Review: Earn, Borrow and Invest Crypto
- Premiere crypto-lending platform with big earning potential
- Proprietary Visa card that offers crypto cash back
- Works in conjunction with Crypto.com Exchange and Cronos (CRO)
- Available in USA, Europe and more
General Overview
Pros
VISA cards that have attractive bonuses and cash back
Biweekly events that offer users the ability to purchase crypto at a discounted price
Great referral program
Incredible interest rates available to both borrowers and lenders
Able to spend with a wide variety of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins
No minimum or maximum deposit limits for interest accounts
Cons
Users must stake CRO tokens to gain access to highest tier of lending rates
App is accessible on mobile devices only
Only available in select countries
Crypto.com Lending Overview
Crypto.com is one of the most well-known names in the crypto space, likely due to their memorable domain name and various advertising campaigns. Founded in 2016, Crypto.com is focused on providing a variety of financial services to crypto users.
In addition to their crypto lending platform, the most popular Crypto.com product is their various VISA cards that give users access to up to 5% cashback rewards on all purchases. The company also offers the Crypto.com exchange.
Crypto.com users who are willing to purchase and hold Cronos (CRO) tokens will be able to get better deals on various services such as a 100% reimbursement on Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Other perks include access to an airport lounge and discounts on Expedia and AirBnb. For example, the only users who are able to receive 5% cashback rewards on all purchases with their Crypto.com need to stake 1 million CRO for 6 months.
Other services offered by Crypto.com include a crypto wallet, ability to earn interest on your cryptocurrency by lending it, an automated crypto trading system (access is country dependent), and a crypto payment processing system.
Crypto.com Interest Accounts
Looking to earn some passive income on your crypto?
Crypto.com offers a very popular product called Crypto.com Earn where users can earn up to 14.5% APY on their crypto.
This product works similarly to other lending institutions like Nexo.io, BlockFi and Celsius Network. These companies operate like market makers in traditional finance, meaning they lend out your crypto and give you a percentage of the yield.
Because the returns are so significant there are plenty of people concerned with how sustainable these services really are. Thus far, the system has been remarkably reliable but it doesn’t hurt that crypto has been extremely bullish the last couple years.
There are three different time periods available for those who make deposits into Crypto Earn: 3-month, 1-month, and flexible.
Much like the crypto loan system, Crypto.com users who stake CRO are able to get better returns on their interest accounts, known as Crypto Earn. However, the default interest rates that don’t require you to have any CRO stake, are also quite attractive.
There are a huge amount of cryptocurrencies that can be deposited to an Earn account but here are some of the most popular:
- Bitcoin
- Ether
- Litecoin
- Ripple
- Binance Coin
- CRO
- LINK
- Solana
- Basic Attention Token
- Maker
- EOS
- Stellar
- Cosmos
- Tezos
- Bitcoin Cash
Stablecoins available in the program include:
- PAX Standard
- PAX Gold
- USDC
- USDT
- TrueUSD
- TrueGBP
- TrueCAD
- TrueAUD
More tokens are expected to be added to the platform over time.
Crypto.com Loans
The user experience when taking out a loan on Crypto.com Lending will depend on whether or not CRO tokens are staked. Those who stake CRO gain access to lower rates of interest.
Borrowing comes with an 8% annual interest rate if the user stakes 10000 CRO or more. Anyone staking 1000 CRO or less will have to pay 12% interest on their loan annually.
In terms of collateral options, Crypto.com users are able to back their loans with Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, CRO, or Litecoin. The credit received by the user will be in the form of a USD-denominated stablecoin.
There are no credit checks or repayment deadlines involved with Crypto.com loans. The minimum loan amount is $100 and the maximum loan amount is $1,000,000.
Currently, only users in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Malta, or the United States are able to access Crypto.com’s credit offerings.
If a loan is not repaid in 12 months or the value of the user’s collateral reaches 85% of the value of the loan balance, then Crypto.com will liquidate the user’s crypto holdings.
Extra Features
Crypto.com offers a number of additional features on top of their crypto lending platform, many of which mimic the kinds of financial services you’d see at a traditional bank. In addition to borrowing and earning interest, Crypto.com users can also trade between crypto assets, become a merchant for payment processing services, and get a VISA card with a cashback rewards program.
Much like the crypto lending platform, users of these other Crypto.com services can get more bang for their buck if they’re willing to stake CRO tokens.
Crypto.com’s payment processing platform for merchants involves no fees, as long as the merchant is settling in crypto. Merchants who wish to receive their payments in fiat currency have to pay a 0.5% processing fee.
Finally, there’s the often-discussed Crypto.com VISA debit cards. These cards come with a variety of benefits, but the strongest perks are reserved for users who are willing to stake large amounts of CRO. For example, users staking 1 million CRO are able to receive 5% cashback on all purchases; rebates for their monthly payments to Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime; discounts at Expedia and Airbnb; and much more. Those who have no interest in staking CRO are only able to receive maximum cashback rewards of 1%.
History of Crypto.com
Before the cryptocurrency boom, the crypto.com domain was registered by well-known cryptographer Matt Blaze way back in 1993. Blaze was a user on the infamous Cypherpunks mailing list back in the 90s, and in 1994, he found a critical vulnerability in the Clipper chip. Blaze has also been on the board at the Tor Project since 2016.
Monaco bought the Crypto.com domain name from Blaze in 2018 for an unknown amount. At the time, Monaco was a new token that had completed an initial coin offering in the previous year. After the purchase of the Crypto.com domain, a rebranding occurred and the project began working on providing additional financial services for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
How to Borrow on Crypto.com
You can get loans using cryptocurrency as collateral on the Crypto.com Exchange (currently not available in the app).
This can be a good way to get cash immediately without having necessarily having to sell your crypto. In fact, if your crypto goes up, you can pay back your loan with your gains. Of course if you borrow too much and crypto crashes you risk liquidation.
Getting a loan on Crypto.com is a relatively easy process. You just head over the lending page and deposit your coins and you have 12 months to repay the loan. You get better rates depending on how much CRO you have staked.
Currently you can get loans on your USDC, USDT, BTC and ETH although Crypto.com has plans to add more cryptos in the future.
What Are Crypto Earn Fees?
The Crypto.com Earn product doesn’t have fees in the traditional sense.
You’re free to deposit your various cryptocurrencies into Crypto Earn for no charge. Be warned, however, that most deposits require a minimum of $250 worth of a particular crypto to start earning.
Of course if you buy your crypto using Crypto.com than you will pay some fees during that part of the process.
Crypto.com Lending FAQ
Crypto.com offers a variety of different financial services, and each of these services come with their own fee structures. For the exchange, trading fees range from 0.04% to 0.20% for executed trades. Rebates on these fees are available for CRO token stakers.
There are no fees involved with Crypto.com merchant accounts, unless the user wishes to convert their received cryptocurrency payments into fiat currency. These transactions incur a 0.5% fee.
There are a number of fees associated with Crypto.com cards, such as ATM withdrawal fees and interbank exchange rates. Users can receive discounts on these fees or avoid them completely by staking CRO. There is also a $50 fee for closing a card account and receiving funds back via a bank transfer; however, users can also simply spend the remaining amount of money left on their card for free.
Crypto.com is a set of special services and features available to Crypto.com’s top tier customers. Some of the additional services available to Crypto.com Private members include: access to Crypto Invest, over-the-counter trading of CRO, access to Crypto.com’s research reports, access to industry events, an inheritance service, and priority customer support. To gain access to a Crypto.com Private membership, users must stake either 100k or 1 million CRO.
The Crypto.com team is headquartered in Hong Kong, although the company also has an office in Singapore.
The CRO token can be staked by users in order to gain a variety of benefits, such as rebates on fees or better rates of returns on interest accounts. Fee rebates are also available on the exchange when users pay fees in CRO.