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

The Crypto.com Lending Platform provides a variety of different services with a user interface that is easy for the average person to understand. With Crypto.com Lending, users are able to earn interest on their crypto holdings, take out crypto-collateralized loans, accept crypto payments, trade cryptocurrencies, and much more. Crypto.com is also well-known for their various card offerings, which involve the use of their CRO token, and a sister exchange site.

In this guide, the term staking is widely used to explain certain concepts. Staking cryptocurrency means locking in an amount of crypto for a predefined period of time to earn interest on the deposit.

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:

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.

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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