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Crypto.com Lending Review: Earn, Borrow and Invest Crypto

The Crypto.com Lending Platform provides various services with a beginner-friendly user interface. With crypto lending, users can earn interest on their crypto holdings, take out crypto-collateralized loans, accept crypto payments, trade cryptocurrencies, and much more. We’ll review Crypto.com’s lending functions and features, so you know if the platform is a good fit for your needs.

Affiliate Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. That said, our reviews and recommendations are based on our honest opinions and personal research.

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. Founded in 2016, the platform is focused on providing various financial services to crypto users. In addition to their crypto lending platform, their most popular product is their various VISA cards that give users access to up to 5% cashback rewards on all purchases. The company also gives users access to the Crypto.com exchange.

Members 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. These perks do require holding CRO. One example of this is that users can receive 5% cashback rewards on all purchases with their Crypto.com card, but they’ll need to stake 1 million CRO for 6 months.

Other available services include a crypto wallet, the 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 Crypto.com Earn, which lets users earn up to 14.5% APY on their crypto.

This product works similarly to other lending institutions, like Nexo.io. 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 concerns with how sustainable these services really are. Thus far, however, the system has been remarkably reliable, but it doesn’t hurt that crypto has been extremely bullish in recent years.

There are three different periods 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 can get better returns on their interest accounts, known as Crypto Earn. However, the default interest rates that don’t require you to stake CRO are also quite attractive.

There are a huge number of cryptocurrencies that can be deposited to an Earn account. Here are some of the most popular:

Stablecoins include:

  • PAX Standard
  • PAX Gold
  • USDC
  • USDT
  • TrueUSD
  • TrueGBP
  • TrueCAD
  • TrueAUD

More tokens are expected to be added over time.

Crypto.com Loans

Here are some important aspects to know about Crypto.com’s lending practices:

Those who stake CRO get lower rates of interest compared to users who don’t, which is an important consideration.

Borrowing comes with an 8% annual interest rate if the user stakes 10000 CRO or more. Anyone staking less will have to pay an annual 12% interest on their loan. 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 and the minimum loan amount is $100 while 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 lending platform, many of which mimic financial services you’d see at a traditional bank. In addition to borrowing and earning interest, 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 lending platform, users of these other Crypto.com services can get more bang for their buck if they’re willing to stake CRO tokens.

The payment processing platform for merchants involves no fees, as long as the merchant is settling in crypto, which is helpful. However, merchants who wish to receive their payments in fiat currency pay a 0.5% processing fee.

Finally, there’s the Crypto.com VISA debit cards. These cards come with a variety of benefits, but the strongest perks are for users willing to stake large amounts of CRO. For example, staking 1 million CRO gets you 5% cashback on all purchases; rebates for your monthly payments to Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime; discounts at Expedia and Airbnb; and much more. Those who don’t stake CRO only get 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. 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 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 relatively easy. Just head to the lending page, 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.

If you buy your crypto using Crypto.com, you will also pay fees during that process.

Crypto.com Lending FAQ


Crypto.com’s various financial services have 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 simply spend the remaining amount of money left on their card for free.


Crypto.com Private is a set of special services and features available to top tier customers. Some of these 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

 

Priority customer support


The company is headquartered in Hong Kong, although they also have an office in Singapore.


The CRO token can be staked by users to gain 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.

Arthur Crowson

About the Author

Arthur Crowson

Arthur Crowson is an award-winning writer and editor who hails from the Pacific Northwest. His career began in traditional news media but he transitioned to online media in the mid-2000s and has written extensively about the online poker boom and the rise of cryptocurrency.

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