My Humble Review of Hodlnaut - Great Place to let your Crypto work for you?

In line with my previous article where I shared about exploring Hodlnaut as a potential platform for me to stake my crypto, I am penning down my thoughts after a week of usage.

With the increase in interest in having cryptocurrency as an investible asset in one’s portfolio these days, it seems like the next viable move is to consider how else to make your asset work harder for you – or in other words, making your money work hard for you.

Enter Hodlnaut

With up to 12.7% annual percentage yield on stable coins, it is essentially 10x or more than some of the banks’ interest rate out there for FIAT currency.

Started locally in Singapore by 2 local entrepreneurs, the company has seen tremendous growth in 2021 reaching 5,000 users in May. I suspect that the figure may well double now given the interest in crypto currency in recent months.

Hodlnaut works by functioning as an high interest crypto earning platform. They essentially borrow your crypto from you and lend it to their partners who mostly use it as a hedge against the Bitcoin prices or market-making on their platform/exchange.

There is no minimum deposit required or locked in period.

As with the products I write a review on, I always make sure that I have skin in the game and it is only fair for me to “test” the product with a substantial amount before recommending it to readers.

In this case, I’ve deposited a total of $4k SGD (approximate) as a start.

First Impressions

The signing up process was swift and simple. Filling in your required details and then awaiting for their KYC process to be done was also quick.

It took me roughly a couple of hours at max to get my account ready. And another 2 business days for my identification check to go through and be confirmed.

The platform is very intuitive and I really like the look of it. Futuristic looking yet plain and simple for a layman like me to understand where to go and achieve what I want.

Upon logging in, you will be taken to the Account Overview page where you get to see your total account value in the currency you dictate (I chose ETH for mine), Total Earned (interest), Pending Interest Payout and the next Payout Date.

Interest is accused daily and paid weekly every Monday at approximately 5pm SG time into your account.

You can also take a look at your account balances overview as well as the Annual Percentage Rate and Annual Payment Yield. Take a look at the 12.7% offered for both USDC and USDT, way better than any commercial banks out there.

Your statements are also readily available and exportable in CSV format which is perfect for those obsessed with tracking their transactions and calculating their net worth to the exact cent.

Crypto Assets Supported

Hodlnaut supports a mixture of crypto assets which includes – ETH, BTC, DAI, USDC, USDT and WBTC

Depositing Crypto Assets into Hodlnaut

The depositing process is simple. There are no deposit fees for Hodlnaut. I chose to move my crypto currency currently at Gemini onto Hodlnaut.

First up, go to your Hodlnaut account and click the “Deposit/Withdrawal” section, choose the your crypto of choice to deposit and remember your address.

Tip: I prefer to scan the QR code to ensure that I make no mistakes during this step. This is really important because if you were to send it to the wrong address, your crypto would be as good as lost, so do confirm and reconfirm before depositing your crypto.

Second, after getting your crypto deposit address from Hodlnaut, head back to your coin exchange of choice (Gemini, FTX.com, Coinbase etc) and “Withdraw” from the exchange.

Enter in the address provided by Hodlnaut or scan the QR if using a smart phone.

Tadah! You are on your way to earning weekly interest. It takes a couple of network confirmation on the blockchain but it should not be any longer than 30 mins for ETH and 2 hours for BTC.

Here’s a referral link to sign up to get a US$20 sign-up bonus if you deposit US$1,000 or more worth of crypto assets in a single transaction within a week of your first deposit.

Tip: note that if you are currently staking your crypto currency on Gemini, it may take awhile for it to be delivered back to your account before you can withdraw it to Hodlnaut.

The listed time is 3-5 business days but it took around a day for me when I drew out my Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Withdrawing Crypto Assets from Hodlnaut

Withdrawing is seamless and fuss free too.

Just head onto the Withdrawal portion on Hodlnaut and select the amount you’d like to withdraw. The withdrawal fee is currently (as per picture attached below) but as seen from other financial bloggers review of Hodlnaut, it seems that the withdrawal fee has come down quite considerably since its inception.

Final Thoughts + Sign Up Bonus

As with any crypto platform being used to hold your assets, you are putting your cash on the line and there is a risk that your cryptos may be stolen or lost.

However, I take comfort in the fact that Hodlnaut are fully compliant with any regulatory requirement by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and as such, we are standing on the right side of the fence for now.

In terms of security, Hodlnaut is running on a secure cloud infrastructure on AWS and also incorporates other security measures such as Fireblocks – where a next-gen private key security and multi-layer security system is created to protect against cyber attacks and human errors.

As with all my other investing/brokerage accounts, I do activate 2FA to add a second layer of security. I think it is a great way to secure your accounts and to be honest, it is not inconvenient or complex and I feel safer knowing that there is an added layer of security on top of Hodlnaut’s own measures.

It’s been a week of testing the platform and I like how it is going thus far – fuss free and I know that my money is working hard for me in the background.

The high interest rate may sound dodgy and one might wonder how can Hodlnaut pay such a high figure. In fact, some might question if its too good to be true – I did question that in the beginning thus my curiosity to actually explore this avenue.

I do believe that as with all things in the economics world, it acts via the market forces of supply and demand – at the moment, the market conditions are allowing Hodlnaut to pay such a good interest rate.

I will not be surprised if this gets revised down in future but in the meanwhile, I am happy to start clocking some mileage on my crypto assets.

The future seems exciting and I am keen to see how it plays out but in the meanwhile, I know that my crypto assets are working for me in the background, that is a very comforting information to my financial plans.

Excited to get onboard and start making your crypto work hard for you in the background on a weekly basis? Sign up via this referral link, you will get a US$20 sign-up bonus if you deposit US$1,000 or more worth of crypto assets in a single transaction within a week of your first deposit.

Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links which goes towards ensuring the sustainability of this blog. This article is only for information and not financial advice and has no regards to any person’s investment and financial needs. This is not a sponsored post and all opinions expressed here are of the author.