A couple of months ago, I shared how much I made in BlockFi, an interest bearing crypto account, after finding out that I still had Bitcoin in my Coinbase account. Since then, I had learned and re-learned so many things about the world of crypto.
Now, there are NFTs, Web3, Decentralized Finance, and the Metaverse. There are so many new things to look at that it had made the space an exciting playground for the everyday investor to become rich in a short amount of time.
But with that also came a big scrutiny from the government and other people who are not convinced of cryptocurrencies. While last year saw a big opportunity for crypto to be mainstream, some crypto firms were hit with sanctions, especially here in the US.
But that didn’t stop many crypto enthusiasts from investing in the space, and continue supporting their favorite digital assets in the hopes of making it rich one day.
A couple of months ago, I set some money aside to invest in BlockFi. I shared a 5-month update on that, but how did it fair now 9 months later? We’re going to talk about my results and what did I do recently with the platform.
What is BlockFi?
BlockFi is a crypto-finance company in the US that provides financial services to individuals and institutions holding blockchain assets. They offer a variety of products and services such as an exchange, crypto loans, a credit card, and their most popular one, an interest account.
By depositing your crypto in a BlockFi Interest Account (BIA), you earn interest up to 9% depending on which crypto you have.
Interest begins accruing the day after you fund your account, and accrues on a daily basis. Interest payments are then made on the last business day of each month, compounding monthly.
What happened to BlockFi?
Earlier this year, BlockFi was accused by the SEC “of defrauding investors and selling billions of dollars in unlicensed investment products over the last three years.” BlockFi paid $100 million to settle charges that it operated an illegal lending business. Officials called this a first-of-its-kind crackdown in digital asset trading.
We all know that in US, crypto firms have been having a hard time setting up shop simply because regulators are breathing down their necks, cracking down on their activities with barely any guidelines.
But despite that, many enthusiasts, and even BlockFi, celebrated the order and the fact that regulators have initiated discussions about legitimizing crypto firms.
“From the day we started BlockFi, we have always known that strong engagement with regulators would be critical for the adoption of financial services powered by cryptocurrencies,” BlockFi founder and CEO Zac Prince said in a statement. “Today’s milestone is yet another example of our pioneering efforts in securing regulatory clarity for the broader industry and our clients, just as we did for our first product — the crypto-backed loan.”
My 9-Month Result
I started BlockFi on June 23 and moved 0.01 BTC to the platform, which at that time, was valued at $330. At the end of October, I earned 15,008 satoshis as interest on my investment. In my last update, that account was valued at $597.82, a $267.82 gain, or a 81.16% growth.
After 9 months, that $330 investment has grown to $484.78. “Grown” might be the wrong way to say it compared to my last update, but it’s still bigger than my initial investment. I earned 18,574 satoshis at the end of March, which is valued at $8.46, and the rest is price appreciation.
The dollar value of my BTC has gone down due to its price action. But I’m actually okay with it because I grew my share of the asset. BTC is known as a store of value, so growing my piece of the pie is more important to me right now than thinking of the value. If I have more BTC shares, then the growth in value will follow.
Combining all the satoshis I’ve earned from BlockFi, I have 33,582. Not bad for an asset that I rarely touch.
My Plan Moving Forward
While I like earning passive income from BlockFi, in April 2, I decided to move out my investment and finally say goodbye to the platform.
I did this because it started to feel like BlockFi was not cutting it for me anymore. The interest I was earning was incomparable to other platforms that generate interest on the same asset. I moved my assets from BlockFi to KuCoin and decided to lend out and keep my BTC there instead.
This was a better move for me since the BTC savings account there yields a flexible 0.39% 7-day annual yield. Plus, I’m also able to lend out some BTC to traders who want the token.
It took 2 days for the withdrawal to arrive in KuCoin. So if you’re thinking of withdrawing from BlockFi, there will be delays in doing that.
Overall, my experience with BlockFi was pretty decent. There weren’t any issues when I was using it. It’s completely passive when you’ve deposited your money. The setting up maybe will take some time. Then, you can just check your investment from time to time. Nothing exciting, really.