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Cryptocurrency holders looking to leverage their assets can now get a loan of up to $100,000 in stablecoins, the digital-payments platform Wirex Ltd. announced early Tuesday. Under the new service, holders can borrow as much as 80% of the value of their crypto holdings and receive an almost immediate advance in their Wirex app, the London-based company said.
Wirex, whose mobile app is held by some 5 million consumers, says it is seeking to serve a market in which crypto loans have become “hugely popular” since the start of the year. Users can tap the proceeds through a Wirex Mastercard or Visa as well as through the app.
The loan can be issued in the USDC, USDT, or NXUSD stablecoins, with no origination fee or setup fee, the company says. Nor are there any credit or affordability checks, though there is a limit of five lines of credit at any given time. The loans incur interest only for the days when the credit line is live, Wirex says. Users may pay back the loans at any time. Stablecoins are so-called because they are pegged to a national currency, often the U.S. dollar, and so are considered less volatile than digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
Now, the new lending facility is expected to widen the usability of those tokens, Wirex says. “This is a landmark point in Wirex offering more ways for everyday users to utilize crypto, and we’ve made it as convenient and straightforward as possible for our customers to take a crypto-backed loan,” said Pavel Matveev, Wirex’s chief executive and co-founder, in a statement.
The 8-year-old company, which besides its headquarters maintains offices in Dallas and Atlanta as well as in Singapore, Kyiv, and Dublin, says it will in the months to come add to the list of stablecoins users can take their credit in.
Wirex, which claims its user base is spread across 130 countries, says its card allows users to spend more than 150 fiat and cryptocurrencies at more than 80 million locations worldwide.
