Bitcoin loans are becoming popular among crypto investors looking for liquidity without having to sell their crypto. Using cryptocurrencies as collateral is a great way to do things like buy a house, finance a business, or pay off high debts. In addition, lending cryptocurrencies can bring tax benefits. Unlike selling cryptocurrencies, crypto or the bitcoin-backed loan does not trigger a capital gains tax event, saving you the headache of doing cryptocurrency taxes. Companies that offer crypto and bitcoin loans are popping up all over the place to offer this type of service to investors. This article breaks down the best of these crypto lenders. Salt loan Based in Denver, CO, Salt Lending is another popular crypto and bitcoin loan origination platform. One of the original blockchain-backed lenders, Salt offers loans in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and more! Founded in 2017, the company has been a leader in crypto lending with a focus on building reliable, sophisticated crypto lending technology since its inception. Salt Lending also leads the industry with a positive reputation for transparency, with records of their profits, income, and expenses publicly available to any investor. Salt has also focused on expanding its lendable territories across the US and into other countries such as Bermuda, Brazil, Hong Kong, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and more to give people and businesses access to the financial freedom that access to fiat provides less. through blockchain assets. Salt also provides near-real-time monitoring of your unique account and provides certain guarantees that your assets are there for you whenever you need access to them. They also offer a mobile app to easily manage your loans on the go and provide a convenient mobile user experience for their customers. BlockFi New Jersey-based BlockFi offers financial products for cryptocurrency holders to do more with their digital assets. The company serves customers worldwide, including 47 US states, with interest-bearing accounts and cheap USD loans backed by cryptocurrencies. BlockFi has an impressive list of investors including Galaxy Digital, Susquehanna, Akuna Capital, Fidelity, Recruit Strategic Partners, Coinbase Ventures, CMT Digital, SoFi, ConsenSys Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital. To get a loan, you pledge bitcoins litecoins, or Ethereum. The company currently offers up to 50% Loan to Value (LTV) ratio of your cryptocurrency. This means that to take out a $25,000 loan, you would have to put up around 10.06 BTC as collateral (currently worth around $50,000 at the time of writing). Interest rates start at 4.5% with a loan term of 12 months. Unfettered capital Austin, Texas-based Unchained Capital is another crypto and bitcoin, loan provider. The company follows a quick 3-step process to get a loan. With an easy process, they can approve up to $1,000,000 in crypto loans in a single day. Unchained has a unique approach to escrow and securing your loan. By developing a multi-signature storage model, they eliminate the single point of failure model of cryptocurrency custody. Three independent key holders work together to protect the collateral, which is then stored on multi-signature addresses that require the use of 2 of the 3 keys. These keys are held by you (the borrower), Unchained, and the third-party key agent. No person or organization is a single point of failure. This smart security feature is a great value for Unchained.