With market capitalization reaching a record $3-trillion last year, crypto investing rocketed closer to mass adoption. Now, more conservative investors are rushing to get involved with Crypto staking and lending, as it rides a multi-billion dollar wave.
While the early attraction of thrill-seeking investors in crypto stemmed from the chance to make millions off a sudden rise in some obscure coin’s value, these new, lower-risk crypto concepts have the potential to expand the pool to more conservative investors – if they don’t wait!
With lending and staking, it’s possible to make money, regardless of appreciation. In just a few clicks, you can start earning 5%, 10%, 20%, or potentially even more on your crypto investments.
If you’re already well-versed in cryptocurrency, you can skip down to the next section. But because there is still so much confusion and misinformation, let’s define a few terms for the uninitiated.
Cryptocurrency is a virtual or digital currency. Until 2009, most of the world’s currency was what is referred to as ‘fiat money.’ At one time, currency was tied directly to physical assets, like gold.
Cryptocurrency, or just Crypto, aims to avoid an institutional or governmental “middleman” by “decentralizing” money – giving the power back to the people. This decentralization can make the transfer of value between parties easier, reduce the costs of said transfers, and also reduce potential corruption by the middlemen.
Blockchain is the technology that allows Crypto to do all this. To put it simply, blockchain is the database that proves the value of Crypto by maintaining a record of transactions in the cloud, in a decentralized manner, accessible by all and alterable by none.
In short, crypto lending entails leasing out your crypto to human borrowers in exchange for interest.In contrast, crypto staking leases out your crypto to the blockchain for token rewards.
Last month Genesis, the largest institutional crypto lender in the industry, released their Q4 findings. According to the Genesis Q4 2021 Market Observations Report, loan originations reached $50 billion, up 40% over Q3 2021. Additionally, loan originations for 2021 totaled $131 billion, nearly 7x higher than 2020.v