You’ve probably noticed that the crypto market has experienced a bit of turmoil in the past few weeks. After reaching $58,300 on Feb 20th, the first cryptocurrency plunged to $46,000 a few days later. Bitcoin managed to retake $50,000 shortly and provided a sigh of relief among investors, with experts claiming the asset is undergoing a necessary correction. However, that didn’t last long as BTC dropped again to lows of $44,000 towards the end of February. Now things are beginning to pick up again.
The signing of the United States’ $1.9T stimulus plan that’s going into law this week signaling inflation is coming, and that boosted confidence in the value of Bitcoin. However, there’s no denying that cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin remains highly volatile. As such, how does one think about growing their crypto assets? If you’ve taken advantage of the price dip and got a hold of some cryptos, there are two options for you.
The first option is to HODL your asset. For those who’re not familiar, HODL refers to slang in the cryptocurrency community that depicts the act of holding a cryptocurrency instead of selling it. HODL it while the price appreciates, and you can cash out when it reaches a specific desired value.
The second option is to HODL your asset and earn interest from it. How does it work? By depositing into a centralized finance (CeFi) platform such as Hodlnaut, you can grow the productivity of your idle crypto assets. Let’s unpack this a little more.
Compared with its decentralized finance (DeFi) counterparts, where you rely on a set of smart contracts to manage your funds, In CeFi, the assets are custodial. It means you’re entrusting the assets with the people or organization behind the platform. To put it simply, it’s algorithm versus people. There are several advantages in HODL-ing with a CeFi platform: the most obvious being the high-interest rates offered and the access to human customer service, which you won’t find with DeFi platforms.
In the case of Hodlnaut, it is a Singapore-based fintech startup started in 2019 by two Bitcoin maximalists Juntao Zhu and Simon Lee. With a mission to increase Bitcoin’s mass adoption, Hodlnaut is a leading crypto lending platform that helps HODL-ers and individual investors to earn more from their digital assets.
There are five different asset classes with varying interest rates that Hodlnaut supports. Hodlnaut offers 6.2% APY for Bitcoin and 6.7% for Ethereum deposits with no lock-in periods or minimum deposits. You can also earn up to 8.3% APY on stablecoins such as USDT, USDT, and DAI.
The main feature of Hodlnaut is the savings account: the Hodlnaut Interest Account. With it, users can grow their idle assets’ productivity with an effective annual percentage yield of up to 8.3%. Furthermore, there are no minimum deposit or lock-in periods for the interest account. It takes minutes to sign up for an account with Hodlnaut. Once users have gone through the mandatory KYC (Know-Your-Customer verification process, they can begin earning interest immediately. Hodlnaut will credit the accrued interest to the user’s account every week on Monday. Furthermore, Hodlnaut also offers a 10% commission on its affiliate program for each successful referral.
Besides Interest Account, Hodlnaut also offers Corporate Loans. Through crypto loans, clients can obtain a credit line using their crypto assets as collateral. With loans starting from $50,000 and flexible loan-to-value, 25%-100%, Hodlnaut can tailor the loans to fit the client’s business needs.
In terms of security, Hodlnaut has taken necessary measures to ensure the funds are safe. As a centralized finance (CeFi) crypto lending platform, Hodlnaut requires its users to go through a KYC (Know-Your-Customer) verification process. Certified Fintech company by the Singapore Fintech Association (a recognized credential by the Monetary Authority of Singapore), the company meets all the requirements for Digital Payment token License, has submitted the paperwork, and currently in the reviewing process for the Singaporean Standard Payment Institution License.
Hodlnaut platform runs on secure AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud infrastructure with all traffic SSL encrypted. Furthermore, Hodlnaut uses industry-standard algorithms for password hashing and procedures while encouraging users to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for account transactions. It’s good to know that Hodlnaut is taking a security-first approach, and there are no hot wallets.
To be transparent with its users, the company recently underwent a financial attestation performed by Crowe Singapore back in January 2021. The verification confirmed that Hodlnaut currently has US$106 million of assets under management. As of today, the AUM has grown to $250 million, as stated on the Hodlnaut website.
Also, Hodlnaut is part of Antler’s portfolio company, a global VC firm backing early-stage startups. While there’s a lot of room for improvement, Hodlnaut is gearing to provide more features such as token swap and launching a mobile application this year.
All good things come to an end, so will be the case with the bull market. Bitcoin has enjoyed tremendous growth in the past couple of months, breaking several all-time-high records in doing so. Now it’s the right time to hold on to your crypto and earn more from it before the bear market approaches.