A High-Yield Savings Account For Your Crypto

With interest rates still being relatively low, many investors are looking for alternative ways to generate returns from their assets. Hodlnaut, a crypto platform, allows crypto investors to receive interest from keeping their crypto assets in the platform. Though these types of interest-bearing crypto accounts are relatively new to the market, they can provide an intriguing alternative to traditional bank accounts.

What Is Hodlnaut?

Hodlnaut was established in 2019 by CEO Juntao Zhu and CTO Simon Lee. It’s a relatively smaller player in the space, with only $100,000 of known funding as of March 31, 2022.

Holdnaut derives its name from HODL, a revered acronym and a way of life for crypto investors that stands for Hold On For Dear Life. True to its name, Hodlnaut allows its users to purchase cryptocurrencies directly in the app and hold those assets while they gain weekly interest on their investment.

What Do They Offer?

Hodlnaut offers high-interest yields on your crypto assets, as well as a growing suite of products to create and manage your crypto portfolio. The app has recently added features like getting paid your interest in your preferred cryptocurrency, as well as in-app token swaps by market price or market order. Hodlnaut also offers one free crypto withdrawal per month and has plans to add more crypto tokens as well.

How Does It Work?

Earning interest with Hodlnaut is as easy as signing up for a free account and downloading the mobile app. A common question new users have is: “How is Hodlnaut able to afford to pay out interest?”

It’s simple: The same way your bank is able to pay you interest from a savings account. They just do it on the blockchain—by taking their crypto assets and lending them out to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and vetted financial institutions that pay an interest rate to Hodlnaut.

In turn, these sites lend them to margin traders who also pay a borrowing rate to their designated exchanges. As a result, they’re able to offer up to 13.73% APY on your held assets.

Main Features

Interest accounts allow users to deposit supported crypto and begin to earn interest. Note that you’re allowed one free withdrawal on the account every month and then will incur fees (more details below) on additional withdrawals.

Though mostly known for interest accounts, Hodlnaut also offers users additional products for their crypto holdings. These include token swaps and fixed term deposits.

If you’re looking to rebalance your crypto portfolio, Hodlnaut’s token swap feature allows you to swap one token for another. Supported tokens include:

Hodlnaut  is continually adding new tokens and features to its platform.

For crypto investors who can afford to lock in their assets for longer terms, Holdnaut also offers the option for lock-in their assets for 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days for higher interest rates.

Who Is It For?

Hodlnaut is a great platform for crypto traders of all experience levels. Casual investors can simply hold their assets, without bothering with the potentially complicated mechanisms of staking and liquidity pools. With Hodlnaut, you can simply invest in the largest crypto projects and accumulate interest on your crypto portfolio over time.

How Do I Open an Account?

Opening an account with Hodlnaut is easy and can be broken down into five simple steps:

Download the Hodlnaut app from either the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. You can also use the desktop site at www.hodlnaut.com.
Create a free account with Hodlnaut and verify your email address.
Enable 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) to ensure your account stays protected.
Complete your Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.
Deposit your crypto assets and start earnings high interest APY on your investments.

Account-holders can also access Hodlnaut’s new account bonus: If you deposit $1,000 or more in crypto assets, you get a free $20 added to your account. They also have a referral program where each person you refer that deposits $1,000 or more will receive an extra bonus of $30. As the referrer, you will also receive an extra bonus of $30.

Fees

Like many fintech platforms, Hodlnaut has some fees and limits it needs to charge its users. However, there are no fees for depositing your crypto assets to your account. You also get one free withdrawal each month of the crypto asset of your choice. Additional withdrawals have the following fees attached to them.

AssetMinimum Withdrawal AmountTransaction Fee
Bitcoin> 0.0004 BTC0.0004 BTC
Dai> 10 Dai10 Dai
Ethereum>0.0036 ETH0.0036ETH
USD Coin>10 USDC10 USDC
Tether>10 USDT10 USDT
Wrapped Bitcoin>0.0004 WBTC0.0004 WBTC

These fees can potentially be significant. DAI, USDC, and Tether are all stable coins pegged to the US Dollar. So for each transaction you’re paying $10.00 USD to withdraw from Hodlnaut. Note that these amounts can change due to current crypto market volatility.

Customer Service

There is currently no phone support for Hodlnaut. Additionally, users outside of Asia should note that Hodlnaut is based in Singapore and its customer support operates on Singapore business hours, which are 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM in Singaporean time.

For those in the US, this means 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM for users in the Eastern Standard time zone, and 7:00 PM to 4:00 AM for users in the Pacific Standard time zone. You can contact Hodlnaut customer service through email or leave a message in the live chat.

Is Holdnaut Safe?

The high interest rates you can receive through a platform like Hodlnaut gives them an edge over traditional banks in regards to returns. However, it’s important to understand that crypto interest accounts are not protected by FDIC insurance. So if a platform like Hodlnaut was to go belly up, there’s a real risk that it wouldn’t be able to return your lent crypto assets.

Hodlnaut hosts its site using Amazon Web Services. All of its web and mobile traffic are SSL-encrypted.

Hodlnaut also stores all of its crypto in cold wallets, which are not connected to the internet and thus serves as an extra layer of security against getting hacked or compromised. But, again, Hodlnaut does loan its crypto assets out to other exchanges — and at that point the custody of the loaned assets is under the security of another site.

Hodlnaut Pros & Cons

Below are some of the pros and cons of using Hodlnaut:

Best Hodlnaut Alternatives

BlockFi

Blockfi is a US-based crypto exchange that allows users to earn high interest yields on their crypto assets, similar to Hodlnaut. Its interest rates may be slightly lower than Hodlnaut, particularly for stablecoins.

However, BlockFi allows users to deposit a wider variety of different crypto assets as well as fiat currencies directly into the app. BlockFi also pays its interest out on a daily basis. BlockFi users can take out loans by using their crypto assets as collateral—though this feature can be very risky.

*Note that U.S. residents are not currently able to open BlockFi Interest Accounts (BIA), but will be able to open “BlockFi Yield” accounts once this new product goes live.

Nexo

Nexo is more like a traditional crypto exchange. Users can buy, sell, and trade dozens of different crypto tokens directly on the daily markets. But unlike other crypto exchanges, users on Nexo can earn up to a 17% APY on their crypto assets, paid out to their Nexo wallet on a daily basis.

There are some stipulations to gain Nexo’s highest interest rates, namely a minimum account balance and a minimum percentage of that account in NEXO tokens. They also offer a Nexo Mastercard Debit card, crypto asset borrowing through margin accounts, and of course, desktop and mobile apps for both iOS and Android.

DimeFi

DimeFi is another platform that is attempting to make decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible to US investors. This app allows users to directly link to their bank accounts via Plaid, and begin depositing fiat currency directly to their DimeFi accounts. Users can start earning daily interest immediately after depositing it to their wallet.

DimeFi has an impressive range of accepted currencies including USDC, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Luna, Avax, and Solana. It allows users to withdraw crypto assets directly to other wallets via on-chain transactions, which means that users only pay the network or gas fees associated with that particular blockchain. It’s only available in the US right now, but the platform has future plans to expand.

More on Exchanges>>The Best Crypto Exchanges for 2022

Bottom Line: Is it Worth It?

Hodlnaut can also serve as a stepping stone for new crypto investors to get their feet wet, before taking on more advanced strategies. Even if you just convert your fiat currency into stablecoins, the interest you can make on these on Hodlnaut out gains traditional interest rates. Although Holdnaut is a smaller player in the space, it may be worth checking out if you’re looking for solid interest yields.

For other ideas on hands-off investing, check out our guide on How to Automate Your Investments.

Further reading:

Disclaimer: The content presented is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, legal, or professional advice. If any securities were mentioned in the content, the author may hold positions in the mentioned securities. The content is provided ‘as is’ without any representations or warranties, express or implied.