In brief

  • BlockFi is raising rates on Bitcoin and Ethereum interest accounts.
  • The market crash has led to an "increased level of activity" on the crypto lender's platform, said CEO Zac Prince.
  • Despite the uncertainty, Prince said BlockFi remains bullish long term.

Despite chaos in the stock and crypto markets over the past week, crypto lending firm BlockFi says it has weathered the storm. 

BlockFi CEO Zac Prince announced today that the company will be raising rates on its Bitcoin and Ethereum interest accounts. Users with up to 5 BTC in a savings account will see rates increase to 6% APY, and users with up to 500 ETH will earn 4.5% APY. 

BlockFi’s business model, offering both loans and interest accounts has allowed us to maintain higher stability in these volatile markets,” Prince told Decrypt. “As we’ve been able to increase our margins on lending, we can use that to then improve interest on our BIA product,” he said.

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During these troubling times, Prince pointed to the fact that BlockFi remained “a source of liquidity,” meaning that they accumulated enough capital from clients and last January’s Series B Funding round to withstand the sell-off last week. “We’re continuing to offer great value whether the market is heavily bullish, or bearish,” said Prince.

In response to the market turmoil over the past week, Prince said BlockFi saw “an increased level of activity and a lot of reshuffling as clients evaluated the market and restructured their assets,” in addition to a five times increase in client support tickets. And to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, a growing pandemic which has gripped the planet, all BlockFi employees have gone fully remote and continue assisting clients via their support system. 

When asked what BlockFi’s expectations are for the market in the near term as the crisis rages on, Prince said his guess is as good as ours:

“This is an unprecedented market event, so it’s impossible to predict exactly what we can expect other than to say the market will continue to adjust to the consequences of this public health crisis, and as that happens it will be interesting to see how the crypto market performs,” he said. 

This is the second announcement BlockFi has made offering improved features since the stock and crypto markets tanked early last week. The company announced early last week that it had added a cash-to-crypto onramp to boost liquidity. 

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As crypto markets remain relatively stagnant, and the world awaits the economic response from its leaders, BlockFi remains “bullish over the long term,” said Prince.

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