Consumer financial services company BlockFi announced that it had decided to drop minimum-balance requirements for its Interest Accounts. This means that BlockFi Interest Account (BIA) holders can earn interest on any amount of cryptocurrency stored in their account. Moreover, they have decided to provide one free withdrawal every month and have removed penalties for early withdrawals, although accounts are still subject to Gemini’s withdrawal minimums: 0.003 BTC and 0.056 ETH.
According to their announcement, this was done due to client feedback, the increasing demand for BIA and the rise in the price of Bitcoin since the launch of BIA.
“We’re thrilled to see the growth in platform activity from crypto investors leveraging our wealth management products. This update to our terms will make our products more widely accessible – which is a key theme of the crypto sector and part of our mission at BlockFi.”
– Zac Prince, CEO and Founder of BlockFi
BlockFi is currently focusing its efforts on rapidly scaling its core business by trying to make its products more accessible to a wider audience, due to recently raising $18.3 million in its series A financing round led by Paypal co-founder-led Valar Ventures. They are also looking to develop new products to address new markets. Flori Marquez, Co-Founder and VP of Operations at BlockFi had this to say:
“Earlier this year, we expanded into new markets such as India. By making BIA open to all, we plan to target clients in Latin America, where banking services and credit reporting are limited. U.S.-grade financial products have typically only been available to high net worth individuals in countries like Argentina and Costa Rica. BlockFi’s platform leverages blockchain rails to make wealth management products available on a much broader scale.”
Recently, BlockFi added Interest Payment Flex, whereby account holders can choose with which currency they would like to collect interest in – Bitcoin, Ether or GUSD.
Last year, Galaxy Digital provided $52.5 million to BlockFi as funding, dubbing them the first company to receive institutional funding in USD for cryptocurrency based loans.
