Bitstamp launches lending service in Europe, Hong Kong and the UAE

The cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp unveiled a lending service in high-capitalization coins targeted at certain markets in Europe, Hong Kong and the UAE. The Block.

The service is not available to residents of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Lending is available in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, USDT, XRP, BCH, LINK, LTC and APE.

Payouts are made daily, with an annual rate of 4.4%.

For loans in stablecoins, borrowers must provide 100% collateral.

The product is implemented in partnership with Tesseract. Under its framework, a legal entity has been created to hold client loans and assets separately from other platform partners.

“We are rebuilding crypto lending from scratch — from the impenetrable […] to radically transparent and accessible,” said Bitstamp CEO Jean-Baptiste Graftio.

The exchange will publish monthly reports on the product’s performance, including data on yields and risks, the loan portfolio’s performance metrics and concentration, borrowers’ risk profiles and collateral levels.

In 2022, crypto-lending platforms BlockFi, Celsius, and Genesis Global Capital halted operations.

In November 2022, Bitstamp received a license to operate as a digital assets service provider in Spain, in July of the same year — an analogous authorization from the regulator in Italy.