Nexo Launches Zero-Interest Lending for Bitcoin and Ethereum Holders

Nexo rolled out zero-interest lending products for Bitcoin and Ethereum holders on Wednesday, expanding a structured credit offering previously available only to private and over-the-counter clients. The platform facilitated $140 million in zero-interest liquidity during 2025 before making the product broadly accessible to retail users.

The new product allows users to borrow against BTC and ETH holdings through fixed-term loans with no liquidation risk during the loan period. Borrowers receive upfront capital with settlement at maturity based on predefined price ranges, eliminating ongoing interest payments and margin call anxiety that plague traditional crypto loans.

Nexo’s structure uses Minimum and Maximum Repayment Prices set at loan origination. If BTC or ETH trades within that range at maturity, borrowers repay based on the actual price. If the price falls below the minimum, borrowers keep the upfront capital and forfeit collateral. If it exceeds the maximum, borrowers repay the cap and retain excess collateral appreciation.

Bitcoin trades around $92,000 after briefly touching $93,000 earlier this week. Ethereum hovers near $3,150, having recovered from December lows.

Holders sitting on unrealized gains want liquidity without triggering taxable events by selling. Borrowing against crypto collateral solves that problem while maintaining long-term exposure.

Nexo’s expansion into zero-interest products for BTC and ETH targets the highest-value collateral in crypto. Bitcoin and Ethereum combined represent roughly 70% of total crypto market capitalization. If you’re building a lending business, you focus on the assets with the deepest liquidity and most established price discovery.

The platform manages approximately $11 billion in assets under management and operates in over 150 jurisdictions. Nexo’s Q3 2025 lending volume hit $73.59 billion, up 38.5% quarter-over-quarter, suggesting strong demand for crypto credit products despite lingering concerns from 2022’s market collapse.

Crypto lending collapsed spectacularly in 2022 when Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis all imploded within months of each other. Combined, those three platforms locked up more than $10 billion in customer funds. Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky now faces fraud charges.

BlockFi went bankrupt, and Genesis reached a $2 billion settlement with creditors earlier this year.

Platforms like Nexo weathered that storm by maintaining actual reserves and avoiding the unsecured lending that killed competitors. Nexo exited the U.S. market in 2022 amid regulatory uncertainty but announced plans to re-enter in April 2025, suggesting confidence in both regulatory clarity and market demand.

Competition is heating up. Platforms like Ledn and Unchained Capital, plus traditional finance players dipping into crypto, all fight for the same high-net-worth borrowers. Nexo needed a differentiated product. Zero-interest lending provides that differentiation, even if the economics ultimately resemble traditional loans once you account for opportunity cost and price range limitations.

Nexo clearly sees enough demand and has sufficient capital reserves to take on the risk of extending large loans against volatile collateral. Either institutional adoption is accelerating faster than public metrics suggest, or high-net-worth individuals are returning to crypto leverage in substantial numbers.

Both scenarios point to the same conclusion: crypto credit markets are healing.

On-chain lending protocols show total value locked around $66 billion after bottoming near $30 billion in late 2022. Centralized platforms don’t disclose numbers as readily, but product expansion suggests similar trends.

Risk hasn’t disappeared either. Crypto collateral remains brutally volatile. A 30% drawdown in BTC or ETH can wipe out equity even in fixed-term structures.

Nexo positioned this as a product for “large and ultra-large ticket clients” in its announcement, suggesting the platform is targeting whales and institutions rather than retail traders. That makes sense given the complexity of the pricing structure and the capital requirements to make fixed-term loans economically viable.

Institutional players want predictable borrowing costs and defined risk parameters. Zero-interest loans with capped repayment prices provide both. A corporate treasury borrowing against BTC holdings for operational liquidity can budget exact repayment amounts regardless of rate fluctuations. That’s valuable for CFOs who need to forecast cash flows quarters in advance.

But calling it “zero-interest” obscures the actual cost. Borrowers give up upside above the maximum repayment price. In a strong bull market, the opportunity cost exceeds what traditional interest would have been. The structure works best for borrowers with neutral to moderately bullish outlooks who want leverage without liquidation risk, not for those expecting exponential price appreciation.

Watch how much volume Nexo’s zero-interest products actually attract over the next quarter. If uptake is strong, expect competitors to roll out similar offerings within months. If adoption stays muted, it suggests borrowers still prefer variable-rate loans despite interest rate uncertainty.