Earning interest while you HODL

Cryptocurrencies and primarily Ethereum backed ones create new modes of earning interest. What was once an ICO backed increased adoption of cryptocurrencies - after being hyper-regulated, and banned by countries, has now transformed into an economy of regulated less riskier Decentralized Finance.

The premise for earning interest in cryptocurrency markets is simple, and below I list a few means to do so* . As a disclaimer, users who choose one of these means do so at their own risk.

• Crypto-Exchanges and Margin Trading
  • Writing a crypto-exchange allowing traders to trade coins in exchange of small commissions per trade. There are more than 100+ decentralized exchanges which use smart contracts to swap one cryptocurrency to another. This approach needs deep expertise in a variety of areas including cybersecurity. The list of known ones is here (State of Decentralized Exchanges)
  • Margin Trading - On exchanges such as Poloneix.com users can lend their HODL-coins to others who trade on their behalf.
• DeFI interest earning applications
  • With applications such as compound.finance, nexo.io, celsius.network and a host of others, users can invest their HODL -coins and earn interest off those coins based on rates determined by the network. These applications provide extremely high liquidity and enable users to withdraw the very same day.
• Staking networks
  • Cryptocurrencies such as Tezos enable users to delegate their Tezos to bakers, who pay them interests. In fact, staked.us provides support to stake more than 10 different cryptocurrencies.
• Collateralized Debt Bonds using Maker Platform
  • The Maker Network and crypto-platform enable users to set collaterals in their own bonds such that their existing crypto-currencies (e.g., ethereum, augur, etc) can be baked from the maker platform. The smart contract which locks the users' cryptocurrency then issues a stablecoin known as DAI based on the existing governance rates of exchange. This DAI can either be invested in other DeFI platforms or can be locked into a savings platform through a Dai Savings Rate contract thus enabling them to earn interest on existing Dai holdings.