*NEXO is an ICO that delivers. I’ve never really written much about an ICO or the merits of a separate cryptocurrency that is not in the Top 10 in the crypto market cap. NEXO was/is an ICO that came out almost 12 months ago. It was among thousands of various ICO’s that were released – but only one of the very few that actually had a stated goal and purpose. NEXO provides loans in either cryptocurrency or fiat with your cryptocurrency held on their wallet as collateral. Now, a ‘lend’ or ‘loan’ based cryptocurrency isn’t new – SALT is perhaps the most well known – but NEXO is far superior in almost every single way. For me, this crypto is a phenomenal opportunity. I want to discuss why.*
### Your stuff is safe – NEXO’s custodianship is insured
NEXO has partnered with BitGo – they’re a CCSS Level 3 and SOC 2 compliant firm that is insured by Lloyd’s. This is kind of a big deal – custodianship is one of those keywords that investors like to hear because it means your stuff is safe and there is recompense if something bad happens. Additionally, they have 2FA – for whatever reason, there’s a slew of cryptocurrency related coins and services that still don’t offer or have 2FA, which is weird.
### Passive Income: Dividends and interest from NEXO
NEXO is apart from the rest of the ICO sphere in that it has an actual service that has delivered. According to their site, they’ve accomplished the following:
– $1 Billion in Instant Crypto Loan Requests
– $300 million processed for 170,000 Nexo users (yours truly included)
But the really awesome part of NEXO is this: passive income. I love passive income. You should love passive income. Currently, you can park your stablecoins in your NEXO wallet and generate daily interest from the 6.5% APR they offer. You might think that is small, but just consider this: The S&P 500 returned -7.7% in 2018. Yes, negative 7.7. But the interest in your stablecoins is just one awesome passive income. The other is dividends.
Now I may totally wrong here, but I don’t know of any other cryptocurrency that offers and has delivered distributed dividends from their profits. This is one of the actual massive and amazing benefits of holding NEXO: you get dividends. That’s huge folks. 30% of the profits are distributed to token holders. The first dividend payout was in December of 2018 for $912,071.00. Not too shabby for a new company in a small space with a hard to reach client base.
### The loan process is stupidly easy
I really need to stress this point. Getting the loan is stupidly easy. Look at the image below.
Here’s the rundown of how fast I got my loan, used it to make a profit and then sent it to my other wallet.
February 2nd, 2019
0639 – ETH transferred to NEXO Wallet
0700 – Take out loan worth $1,0712 Tether (50% of the US Dollar value of my deposited ETH)
0700 – Sent Tether to Kraken (used 5x trading leverage on my loan on Kraken).
1818 – Sent all earned ETH from Kraken to NEXO wallet
1819 – Paid off the loan.
1819 – Sent ETH to my wallet.
When it was all said and done, I started with 16.54 Ethereum and left with 17.313.
And the whole process is very easy – it’s done right on the wallet page (below)
Ok – someone might ask, ‘Well, why didn’t you just transfer your ETH to Kraken, convert to USD and then use that to trade on margin?’ Simple: If I sell my ETH into USD, I lose out on any gains made by ETH during that time. With my NEXO loan, my ETH gained about 1.2% during the trading day and I didn’t have to lose that potential gain by selling it into fiat on Kraken and then converting back. My Ethereum retained all of its gains and value while I used my loan.
### If you’re in the US, it’s not on any US exchanges, but there’s an easy workaround
I am in the US, so I know the struggle of being able to open an account outside of the US. The US is definitely not the land of free markets when it comes to the world of finance. Only the privileged rich and powerful get the free pass to speculate and invest at will – normal people are prohibited by Uncle Sam – because the government knows how to best spend your money. Anyway, enough with that rant.
The reason that NEXO won’t pop up on any US-based exchange is due to the fact NEXO is really security – at least the SEC would classify it as such. Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities. If you buy something and expect a return or a share of the profits, that’s security. But that doesn’t mean a US citizen can’t own it or have it. I used the coin swap service Changelly, which is a very, very easy service that charges a fairly modest fee. For anyone no in the US, Huiobi is the most recent exchange to add NEXO – and there are going to be a slew of exchanges picking up NEXO here in the future.
### I’m crazy bullish on NEXO
Again, I am not one to proselytize or ‘pump’ up any ICO or a given coin. I’m a technical analyst and a day trader, I don’t care about fundamentals. But when something like NEXO pops up on my radar, I take notice. NEXO is the easiest, cheapest and most accessible form of getting a loan from your crypto. And you can pay it back in crypto. Some crypto-loan services will allow you to use your cryptocurrency as collateral, but you need to pay back your loan in fiat. NEXO is not like that. They’re regulatory compliant, they have custodianship, profit sharing through dividends, daily interest on your stablecoin holdings - they’re the real deal. Again, I can’t say enough on how awesome this service is and how bullish I am on this crypto.