Simple Ways to Earn Interest On Crypto Holdings
If you earn interest at a 10% rate, your investment will double in about 7 years. That’s the incredible power of compounding. If you’re not taking advantage of simple ways to earn interest on your crypto, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your wealth.
This post will guide you through 3 great options for earning interest on your crypto, including Ledger, Binance, and Crypto.com. We’ll provide a crypto interest rates comparison and more importantly, shed light on the important fine print lurking behind.
Note: interest rates are variables and will change from what you see here. Be sure to check each of the referenced websites to get the latest crypto interest rate details.
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Earning Interest on Crypto
If you have purchased cryptocurrency and are holding it, it’s likely you anticipate its value will go up over time. That means you are an investor and you are targeting appreciation.
However, most sophisticated investors don’t rely on appreciation alone. They typically want both appreciation and cash flow. That is, great investments should be expected to become more valuable and also generate income.
While it seems obvious, when your money is earning interest, it’s working to give you additional cash. Each little unit of crypto you own is an employee working hard to make you more money.
It’s critical to have your money working for you.
The Magic of Compounding Crypto
If your crypto holdings are earning interest, you can withdraw that interest as income.
If you don’t need to take the income, you can add it to your investment pile. Each time you earn interest, you gain more “employees” working hard to make you more money, even while you sleep. This causes escalating earnings and is what allows your money to grow faster and faster over time.
Calculate it for yourself with our Crypto Staking Calculator.
As the rumor goes, when Albert Einstein was once asked what mankind’s greatest invention was, he replied: “Compound interest.”
How to Earn Interest on Crypto
With some basics in mind, the simplest way to earn interest on your crypto holdings is to deposit your cryptocurrency at a financial institution that pays interest. This is similar to keeping your money at a bank. And fortunately, there are a number of great options.
Just like traditional banks, interest-paying crypto-financial institutions make money by utilizing deposits to earn even more money. This may include activities like lending, investing, spreads, and even mining.
General Pros
- Simple way to earn interest on crypto
- Professional custody of your deposits
General Cons
- Regulatory landscape is not mature
- Requires you trust your deposits with a company
- Different rates, products, and services across different jurisdictions
- Many companies have mishandled customer funds and/or gone bankrupt, including Voyager, Celsius, BlockFi, and FTX
- No FDIC or SIPC protection
What are interest rate tiers? You’ll see the concept of tiers come up throughout these comparisons. Most financial institutions pay different rates on different portions of your balance. For example, they may pay 10% on your first $1,000, 5% on the next $1,000, and then 1% on any balance above that. It is important to click past the advertised rate and understand what your holdings will actually earn. Some coins drop off very quickly.
As an alternative, you can stake with your own non-custodial wallet, such as your Ledger, which we’ll discuss here as the first option.
1. Ledger: Non-Custodial Staking
Being in charge of your own assets is considered the best approach to crypto. This does, however, come with its own set of pros and cons.
If you have decided to manage your own crypto, you may have found the various ways to earn can be incredibly complex. In fact, many of the DeFi choices are highly-sophisticated systems with complex risk profiles, typically only exposed to the financial industry.
However, staking is straightforward and simple. Even better, Ledger has added staking features directly into its Ledger Live interface to streamline the process.
Here are our posts and videos to get you started:
- How to Stake With a Ledger to Earn Crypto (native staking)
- How to Stake Ethereum on Ledger…Plus Due Diligence (Lido staking)
We walk through everything you need to know and how you can perform due diligence along the way.
Learn more about Crypto Wallet Best Practices.
2. Binance: Easiest Way to Explore DeFi Concepts
Amazing intro to DeFi on a familiar platform.
Most crypto owners have passed through Binance at one point or another. It’s one of the best exchanges. But it’s also grown to much more.
You may be pleasantly surprised to see Binance also provides a huge variety of ways for you to earn interest on funds that are otherwise sitting idle. Binance makes this all surprisingly simple and fun. It gives you a way to explore and try otherwise complex DeFi transactions.
- Binance.com Earn offers interest accounts, staking, liquidity farming, launchpad, and more. Just hover over the “Earn” menu and explore.
- Binance.us Staking lets you stake without having to lock up your funds. Go to Resources > Staking to see your options.
Pros
- Great introduction to the DeFi world
- Fun and easy interface
- Some options have triple-digit interest rates
Cons
- Binance.US options are currently limited compared to Binance.com
- Requires active engagement
- High-yield options can have high risk, so evaluate your choices carefully
Binance is familiar to most of us and has some exciting options to explore.
- Binance.com: referral link or direct at https://www.binance.com/
- Binance.us: referral link or direct at https://www.binance.us/
3. Crypto.com: Hybrid Option for Crypto Investors
Hybrid option for experienced crypto investors.
Crypto.com is growing aggressively, bringing many new customers. It provides a wide array of services to get the most from your crypto holdings. These span from basic to advanced.
That said, even the basic options are more complicated than others on this list.
To get the best rates out of Crypto.com, you need to lock your holdings in for 3 months and stake $40,000 in CRO, which is Crypto.com’s coin. If you do both, you can earn 8.5% on your Bitcoin and 14% on certain stablecoins.
With that said, all interest rates aren’t equal. Crypto.com uses a “per annum” rate and pays “rewards” instead of traditional interest. This all means your interest is not compounded, so you don’t benefit from the magic of compounding.
Pros
- Founded in 2016
- Based out of Singapore
- Fast growing with evolving services
- For some depositers, reward rates are very high
- Option to own your wallet keys and access to non-custodial DeFi services
- Strong security and compliance standards
Cons
- Interest is not paid on rewards, which means no compounding
- Fairly advanced for average crypto savers
- To earn competitive rates, you must stake CRO and choose a deposit term
- Mobile app-only interface
Crypto.com is an intermediate option for people looking to explore alternate earning methods.
Conclusion
Having your money work for you can dramatically improve the value of your investments over time. If you are okay holding a portion of your cryptocurrency investments in financial institutions, you owe it to yourself to explore these options.