Blockchain.com’s new interest-bearing accounts will support only Bitcoin at the outset, offering up to 4.5% annual interest on users’ deposits. But the team said that it is working on adding other assets like ETH and USDT in the future.
Crypto wallet and services provider Blockchain.com said it is rolling out interest-bearing accounts. In that way it will enable its clients to earn yields on their Bitcoin deposits.
Founded in 2011, Blockchain.com is best known for its Bitcoin blockchain explorer and cryptocurrency wallet services. According to the company, approximately 28% of all Bitcoin transactions in 2020 happened exactly in Blockchain.com wallets.
However, the company recently decided to start splitting out to some other lines of business, launching an institutional lending desk in August 2019 and a retail lending desk in March 2020. On Wednesday, Blockchain.com announced its plan to widen its product atonements even more in order to include an interest-bearing account.
Blockchain.com is however not the only company that is contributing yields on crypto deposits. For example, BlockFi managed to begin with providing interest-bearing accounts last August, marketing an up to 8.6% annual interest on crypto-assets such as BTC, ETH, LTC, and USDC. Celsius, Nexo, and Crypto.com have also issued comparable projects.
Interest-bearing Accounts on Blockchain.com to Support Only BTC in Beginning
Blockchain.com’s new account will only support Bitcoin at the outset, offering up to 4.5% annual interest on users’ Bitcoin deposits. However, the company stated that it plans to add also some other assets like ETH and USDT in the future. The company also noted that all clients in the United States, Canada, and Japan still won’t be able to access the new service at launch.
With regard to its recently launched retail lending business, that enables users to borrow USD-pegged stablecoin, USD Digital, against Bitcoin held in their Blockchain.com wallets, the company said that it will in the near time make it available to U.S. customers and enable support for new crypto assets.
Additionally, the company is adding USDT and ALGO to the list of assets supported by its wallet, which also includes BCH, ETH, and XLM.
The company said that they decided to utilize this, as they call it “a unique moment.
They explain:
“There’s more than enough commentary about the COVID crisis’s effect on society, but we believe that it’s the financial impact is what’s most interesting for crypto. Prior to this crisis, we were already seeing public debt hit record levels only surpassed during wartime. Now it’s through the roof.”
The thing is, the company claims, it is pretty hard to make sense of the economy. “The stock market is up, but we’re seeing record unemployment — at Great Depression levels.”
Centralized, Traditional Institutions Failed
The company added:
“Centralized institutions have shown weakness in their ability to respond. They failed to provide adequate warning. Failed to collaborate and coordinate responses and policies. And they’re backstopping wall street, but not main street. Meanwhile, the Fed is printing money at an unprecedented rate. And this is just the beginning of a global inflationary regime”
In order to complement its rapidly growing product, the company decided to upgrade the Blockchain.com Exchange, by simplifying the UX and optimizing it for powerful trading experience.
“On average, we’ll ship 3–4 changes a week to a trading UX meant to delight our users. Our goal is to offer a trading experience that’s simple and intuitive enough for a brand new trader while offering enough power for any trader around the world,” concluded the company.
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