Crypto lending might not be a very uncommon term for you unless you are a hardcore traditionalist. The idea of crypto-lending is not that complicated. The ones to borrow can put their crypto assets to use as collateral to gain a stablecoin or fiat loan.
On other hand, lenders come up with the loan needs assets at an agreed-upon rate of interest. This is functional in reverse as well. There is nothing special about crypto loans. They are just collateralized loans. However, they come with a considerable range of benefits for institutions, businesses, traders, and users.
Bitcoin Loans
Let’s get to the main subject, Bitcoin loans. Well, in case you own bitcoin, there is a huge chance that you will sell it or exchange it for services or products as long as its value is continuing to rise. Lending bitcoin is an approach to put your satoshis to work without being out of your investment position by selling your BTC.
Bitcoin loans will be a great help in getting your hands on an asset highly liquid at present and can easily be turned into hard cash. Nonetheless, before you invest in bitcoin loans, you should be very knowledgeable about the fact that these investments come with high risks.
How does Bitcoin Loans Work?
It is pretty similar to what you think about how any other loan works. The procedure is quite simple, and just like any other loan, you can think of. A lender gives their BTC to the one who is borrowing. Then the borrower pays the loan back with a certain amount of interest. It can also be transacted as personal loans straight between any two parties having bitcoin wallets.
It has chances of getting complicated for folks to connect with others whom they can have faith in and who are interested in borrowing or lending from them in Bitcoin. What this has resulted is that it has built up several online bitcoin lending organizations, and thus it has become much easier to borrow or lend bitcoin and earn interest from them.
Most of the online Bitcoin lenders work by lending out the bitcoin by private bitcoin owners to the borrowers rather than an established lender. The borrowers can decide the amount they want to pay as interest. Some lending platforms can decide how much bitcoin will lend to the borrowers, and they can also fix the rate of interest. The borrowers go through their plans and decide which loan is the best for them, and they choose accordingly. Also, the lenders can decide whether to lend them the bitcoins or not.
The Availability of Bitcoin Loan Models
Borrowers choose among the loans that are denominated by a leading currency like United States Dollars or Euros and Bitcoin loans.
For Loans “Denominated” by a Major-Currency
In such a scenario, the borrower has to pay-back the bitcoin to the fixed amount of fiat currency. Here is an example to make things more transparent. In case you are borrowing 1000 USD, which is equivalent to BTC for 2 years at a nominal interest rate/annum of 8%, you have to repay the amount with 160 USD worth of BTC in interest across the term of the loan. This loan model is pretty suitable if you earn fiat currency as you will be able to calculate the loan’s exact cost.
For Loans “Denominated” by Bitcoins
Now, in case a loan is “denominated” by bitcoin, it becomes mandatory for the borrowers to pay-back the exact bitcoin amount they take as loans and interest. If you are borrowing 1 BTC for 2 years at an 8% interest rate per annum, you need to pay-back that 1 BTC along with 0.16 bitcoins as the interest amount. If you mine or earn bitcoins, this approach would be quite friendly to you. Hopefully, things are clearer to you now.
Always remember that bitcoin loans’ offers never provide added value compared to a typical peer to peer loans when used in the first model.
All the Possible Uses of Bitcoin Loans
Cryptocurrency loans have various plus points that have led so many people to borrow cryptocurrencies around the world.
- One biggest advantage you get from crypto loans is that you get to keep your crypto to gain from capital profits in case the value rises. However, earn returns as interest.
- The biggest advantage for a bitcoin borrower is they permit you to get access to cryptocurrency, which you can put for direct investment in services requiring payment in bitcoin. The cost of cryptocurrency transfer can be very less for international loans in comparison with the cost of getting loans by bank transfer. Crypto loans can be beneficial for a wider base of borrowers.
- Bitcoin loans which are denominated by fiat currencies permit the investors to conjecture on hikes in bitcoin price. This is because in case the value increases over loan terms, they can easily sell the borrowed asset, pay-back the agreed-upon sum of fiat currency with interest, and keep the change.
- Another thing is that they also give access to the investors to invest a minimal amount of bitcoin by selling the borrowed bitcoin and then again buying and repaying the bitcoin loans if and when the cost drops, keeping the difference. These are very conjectural activities that need a heavy risk tolerance.
The Risks a Borrower has to Bear While Applying for Bitcoin Loans
Loans are denominated by bitcoin but converted into fiat currencies, and the other way round, the volatility of bitcoin value related to fiat currencies shows a great risk. A little hike in the bitcoin price can highly increase the value of their loans in case the borrowers get standard currencies and require to purchase bitcoin specifically to pay-back their loans. Dealing with bitcoins actually requires a lot of time and hard work.
The Risks a Lender has to Bear While Offering Bitcoin Loans
Lending out bitcoin is not as simple as it seems. It contains many difficult obstacles for the lenders as well. Matters like dealing with international borrowers, deficiency of regulation, the volatility of Bitcoin price, chances of digital scams, chances of platform failures, etc. create a big issue with lending cryptocurrencies to the borrowers.
All the Costs Associated with Bitcoin Loans
Lending platforms charge payments to the ones borrowing and the lenders for their brokerage facilities. Certain platforms take a one-time brokerage payment at the beginning of the term of the loan, and this sum is usually subtracted from the loan before it is paid to the borrower.
Some other special costs include the late fees, penalty interest, bitcoin transfer charges, and brokerage fees.
Concluding Note
So, that is everything you need to know about Bitcoin loans. Hopefully, this made you aware of all the significant features related to Bitcoin loans. This specific ecosystem is coming up with multiple offers of special opportunities for people in the crypto world to gain yield, liquidity, and increment of their assets’ productivity.
