Nexo.io Crypto Backed Loans Review

I first heard the idea of crypto backed loans through SALT lending, I looked into this project early on because I thought that it was a neat concept. The idea of not having to sell my crypto, lose out on potential gains (or the fun of 50% losses)​ and being able to use crypto as collateral​ to secure a loan. However, my experience​ with SALT wasn't the​ experience I had hoped for. There were fees upfront just to be considered for a loan, a long waiting list, and I had heard​ that if you did get accepted for a loan it could take quite a while​ to actually receive the funds. Now,​ this was 9 or 10 months ago, so the user experience could have changed since then.

A few months later I stumbled across Nexo.io. This was another crypto backed lender that seemed to offer the same service as Salt, but with a few perks. Nexo claimed to be instantly ​qualifying​ users for loans in a matter of hours, as well as offering a kickback​ to investors in the form of a dividend​​ for holding the Nexo token. This peaked my interest​ because I'm​ am always on the lookout for passive income. ​

I decided to open an account, pick up some tokens and see what it was all about. I used HitBTC, which is probably one of my least favorite exchanges. I think their fees are horrendous​ and you can only trade and withdrawal​ in whole numbers, sometimes having to leave partial balances stuck on the exchange. But, I already had an account there so I used it out of convenience​.

My experience with Nexo has been just as advertised by the video above. I deposited​ Bitcoin because the loan to value ratio is higher than their native token. They use a custodian service through Bitgo, so that helped to give me a peace of mind when depositing. Also, they work with Credissimo for funding of the loans which is an established lending company throughout Europe.

So far I have taken out 2 Crypto backed loans with Nexo, the first I did as a test just to see if it even worked and the second I actually used when I was in a pinch waiting on funds to show up to rent our moving truck. In my experience,​ both loans were approved in just a few hours and deposited to my Binance account as Tether. Pretty cool! Now, there are still a few hoops to jump through if you want USD. I had to buy Btc with the tether, and transfer the Btc from Binance to CoinbasePro, and then sell the Btc for USD. So, it's​ not as easy as just clicking a button yet, but they are working on that. Still,​ I think that it is pretty good that I had useable cash in my bank account both times in less than 24hours!

The first investor dividend​ is scheduled for December 15th, Nexo will be sharing 30% of their profits in the form of a dividend to Nexo token holders. The token has also been seeing nice growth over the past month as well. It's up 33% today, at the time of writing.

I'm not here to shill the coin, just presenting my experience as a user. The platform is definitely not perfect. They advertise that you can save 50% on the interest of your loan if you repay the loan with the Nexo token. However, for the 2 months that I have had the loan, there has not been an option yet to pay with Nexo, due to liquidy reasons. So as of right now, there isn't a big reason to hold the token, at least not until they enable this option or start paying the dividend. There are still the hoops to jump through if you are looking for actual USD as well.

But for the most part, I have had a good experience with Nexo and I have no problem recommending them to my friends​. Its worth a try if you need some cash, but dread the idea of parting with your Crypto!

-steemengines