As we’ve talked about with many different articles recently on the website, cryptocurrency is a booming industry right now with people all over the country looking to invest. In most cases, people will turn to a crypto exchange such as Binance or CoinBase to help with their purchases, however there are other options out there for you.
The problem with websites like Binance and CoinBase is that once you get your cryptocurrency, it just sits in your account and does nothing till you decide to trade it. Wouldn’t you like to see a service similar to a bank where if you hold your coins there you can start to collect interest on them?
There are actually websites like that out there and today we are going to be covering Nexo, otherwise known as Nexo Wallet. We’ve briefly mentioned Nexo in one of our other articles, but today we are going to take a deep dive specifically into it and review it as a crypto exchange and crypto lending service.
What Is Nexo?
As mentioned above, Nexo is a cryptocurrency loan service.
They help to pay out interest on your crypto assets so long as you are using their platform and lending them out.
While Nexo does offer basic crypto exchange abilities, the main purpose of Nexo is not to use it for day trading.
Within the app itself, you have the ability to take out loans on the app that are backed by crypto to help pay off debt or do whatever needs to be done.
You are then expected to slowly pay back the loan along with the accompanying interest. On the flipside, you can allow Nexo to use your coins to lend to people requesting loans.
Right away, you might think this sounds dangerous but it is actually quite safe. The coins at no point leave your wallet and they won’t disappear, even if another person defaults on their loan.
If you are planning on taking out a loan with Nexo, you are also going to have to have some sort of collateral to prove that you can pay it back.
In Nexo’s case, this is achieved through crypto backed loans. In order to take out loans, you have to have some cryptocurrency deposited on the website. Once you take out your loan with Nexo, a certain percentage of your cryptocurrency is going to be locked and you are only able to access your coins again once the loan is paid off.
Nexo uses this as collateral to help protect themselves from people who can’t repay their loans. This is standard practice within crypto loan services and is just used as a form of protection.
One final note with Nexo is that your coins are not locked at any point if you are planning to collect interest. Oftentimes with crypto loan services, when you choose to collect interest, your coins are locked in for a certain period of time.
With Nexo, you can withdraw them at any point, allowing you to easily move your coins around daily. Having this type of feature is great as the cryptomarket is incredibly volatile.
With some of these services, we have seen people lock up their bitcoin only for it to drop 30-40% in value. Because those coins are locked, the person cannot do anything but sit there and watch as it plummets. We definitely like that Nexo allows you to easily move your assets whenever you want.
Where websites like Nexo differ from other crypto loan services however is in the layout of the website itself, the ease of use, the coins that they provide, and the fees and interest that are attached to their service.
We are going to be diving into all of that to help give you an idea of what you are going to be embarking on with Nexo.
The History Of Nexo
Nexo was launched in 2017 and now features more than 1 million users on the platform. They support over 40 different fiat currencies and are available in over 200 jurisdictions.
While they have undergone upgrades and improvements, they have always looked to provide incentive for buying and holding crypto on their website through loans.
Is Nexo Legit?
Like all cryptocurrency websites we review, we can say that Nexo is a completely legit website that is not going to disappear in the middle of the night and take all of your investments.
They pride themselves on security and work hard to ensure that your assets are 100% safe when you are collecting interest.
What we loved most about Nexo was the insurance policy and anti-theft measures that they have in place to help protect you as a customer.
What we have noticed in some crypto exchanges is that there is not much insurance when it comes to your account.
If the website were to be hacked into and someone were to steal your assets, they would simply be gone. When we see websites like that, we still know that they are safe, we just recognize that there are dangers to holding your coins in their wallet.
Nexo on the other hand prides itself with insurance protection, meaning that if something happens to your account and your assets are stolen, you will be reimbursed and protected.
This type of protection makes sense, as the point of Nexo is to be a place for you to hold your coins and collect interest. If you could not trust Nexo to do this for you, it would fail at what it is trying to accomplish.
After reading through their insurance policies and looking at the security systems that they have in place, we can say that Nexo is legit and that we trust it as well for storing your cryptocurrency. As an investor, you should feel completely safe with them and they work to help give you peace of mind.
Our Experience With Nexo
Now that we’ve covered some of the basic information of Nexo and what it provides to you, it’s now time to break it down and see how it works from a consumer standpoint. All of its services are great, but it means nothing if the website is difficult to use or does not offer good rates.
Ease Of Use
The first thing that we want to say is that Nexo is incredibly easy to use. From making an account to transferring cryptocurrency, we were able to do it all with ease. There are resources out there on the website as well to help you with this process.
If you were looking to buy coins on Nexo, you could do so as well and they provide you with all the standard information that you normally see when you are looking to make a purchase. Nativating around the website was quite easy and it was very friendly for beginners.
There were some tools out there for advanced users as well on Nexo meaning the platform works great for those who are just getting into crypto interest services and those who have been using them for a while.
Trading
With over 100 different crypto and fiat pairings, you are going to have a wide selection of trades to make on some of the most popular coins.
In terms of selection, a standard crypto exchange is going to have it beat with the amount of coins that you can purchase.
We don’t consider that a bad thing here though, because, as we stated, Nexo is meant to be used as a crypto loan service rather than a day trading market.
That being said, you will still find 20 or so cryptocurrencies for you to use and the list continues to expand.
We also found that it was quite easy to deposit and withdraw cryptos that were available to use. If at any point we had to add more BTC, we just topped up the account by sending using the deposit and withdrawal features.
The other thing we want to mention when it comes to trading Nexo has their own coin called a Nexo token. You can buy it using EUR or USD, or you can trade for it with your BTC or ETH.
Like many of the crypto loan websites out there, Nexo encourages you to use their token and generally offers the best interest rates and lowest fees when dealing with that coin.
While converting some of your assets to NEXO isn’t too difficult, we still would rather prefer holding in bitcoin or Ethereum. Having to convert to another coin to maximize your gains is a roadblock that we understand, but aren’t the biggest fans of.
Collecting Interest
The main goal of Nexo is to use it to collect interest on your crypto assets and earn more.
Nexo does offer fairly good rates with 12% interest rates on fiat and stablecoins and 8% on your crypto savings.
There is a downside to all of this however. If you want to get the maximum interest rates that are listed here, 10% of your portfolio is going to have to be Nexo token.
If you don’t have NEXO token, your interest rates are going to go down to 10% and 5% respectively.
Once again, we understand this as a business move as it helps Nexo gain traction for their own coin and only having to convert 10% of your assets on the platform to Nexo isn’t the worst thing.
We definitely recommend converting 10% of your assets if you plan on using Nexo for interest. If you do a bit of research on the token as well, you might find you are interested in it and collect even more.
These interest rates are actually solid compared to the rest of the market and are impressive when you consider you can pull your coins out at any given period. The Nexo coin also allows Nexo to beat their competitors but offering fantastic interest returns on their token.
The final thing that we have to talk about with Nexo is their interest payments. While it is an annual interest rate, Nexo pays out daily, meaning you are going to be seeing gains into your account. The amounts are going to be quite small, but having daily payouts is something that we are quite happy to see.
Resources Available
We talked earlier about how Nexo does provide some information for how to use their services, but overall we found that the resources and FAQs on the website were heavily lacking.
It is beginner friendly enough, however if you are planning on using all of the features on the website, there is going to be a learning curve. We would like to see them add a few more pages on how to utilize all of their features so everyone can get the most out of the service.
Fees
If you are using Nexo, you don’t have to worry about any hidden fees with your account. There are going to be your standard transaction fees, which are common with every crypto service, however they aren’t egregious nor are they going to surprise you.
We hate services in which you lose a large chunk of your investment by simply choosing to do business with them.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we have to say that we like Nexo and are impressed with everything that it has to offer.
The site is easy to navigate around for beginners and they should be able to learn how to do the basic things fairly quickly.
We would like to see a little more resources however so they can acquaint themselves with more advanced forms of trading on the site.
As a loan service, they do provide loans to just about anyone who applies as long as you have some collateral that you can offer.
If you are looking to collect interest, you are going to get decent rates as well.
We are never a fan of having to convert over to a website specific token or coin to increase rates, but only 10% of your portfolio isn’t the worst thing that can happen.
All in all, if you are looking to hold your crypto for a long period of time without day trading, depositing it on a website like Nexo is a great way to grow your portfolio.
