Lending Cryptocurrencies
Coindcx announced Thursday that its crypto lending program called Dcxlend has come out of the beta testing phase and is now fully launched. Five cryptocurrencies are supported: BTC, USDT, ETH, XRP, and BNB.
The exchange’s website currently displays monthly interest rates of 2 percent for BTC, 1 percent for USDT, 1 percent for BNB, 0.75 percent for XRP, and 0.75 percent for ETH. CEO Sumit Gupta told news.Bitcoin.com that BTC has the highest interest rate “because our traders mostly do margin trading in BTC markets (hence high demand for BTC lenders).”
The exchange detailed that there are “three lending term lengths: 7 days, 15 days, and 30 days. The interest rate varies dynamically and goes up to a maximum of 2%, according to market dynamics — demand and supply.” Furthermore, its website states that “the cryptocurrencies lent through Dcxlend will be used to provide leverage to users on Dcxmargin,” another service the exchange offers.
Gupta shared with news.Bitcoin.com that during the beta testing period with just BTC and USDT, “we had roughly 120 lenders which led to a circulation of 170 BTC on a daily basis.” Claiming that the program has recently garnered more attention from lenders, he remarked, “Hence we’re scaling it up and will keep on adding more coins.”
The CEO explained that his exchange has an internal settlement and liquidation mechanism for margin trading which does not have “a dedicated funding wallet,” elaborating:
Funds are then lent to the users only when the margin trade is open, with no withdrawal access and hard liquidation with 7.5% maintenance margin.
Similar Programs Worldwide
In the U.S., Blockfi recently introduced a savings account that enables customers to earn 6.2 percent annually on their BTC and ETH. Meanwhile, regulated bitcoin derivatives exchange and clearinghouse Ledgerx has a program called Ledgersavings which allows clients to earn an implied rate of around 16 percent annually.
In Japan, regulated exchange GMO Coin launched a lending program for BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, and XRP last year. However, at the time of this writing, the exchange is only borrowing BTC but customers can lend between 10 and 500 BTC over 181 days and earn up to an annual rate of 5 percent.
Recently-licensed Japanese exchange Coincheck, which was hacked in January last year, also has a lending program for BTC with a maximum annual rate of 5 percent. Prior to the hack, this service supported 12 cryptocurrencies.
Bitbank, another regulated Japanese exchange, also offers up to 5 percent interest annually for users lending between 1 and 25 BTC. Besides BTC, the exchange plans to extend the offer to BCH, ETH, LTC, XRP, and MONA.