Btcpop’s “Risk Free” Interest Bearing Bitcoin Savings Account / Wallet

Bitcoin Savings Account

Btcpop’s “Risk Free” Interest Bearing Bitcoin Savings Account / Wallet

 

Btcpop Savings post featured image. a piggy bank with cryptocurrency coins and btcpop logo

“Btcpop’s Instant Pool interest bearing wallet (which for all intents and purposes is a Bitcoin Savings Account) should not be overlooked as a financial tool. Where else in the world can you gain 5-15% risk free interest on freely withdraw-able Bitcoin deposits?”

In a world with central banks artificially manipulating interest rates to around 0% the concept of risk free interest in a savings account has vanished from our minds. But, back in the “good ol’ days” interest rates of 5+% on savings accounts were pretty common and before that 10% or higher could even be expected. These days are back with  Btcpop.co’s Instant Account, which acts as a Bitcoin Savings Account

How the Instants Pool acts like a variable rate Bitcoin Savings Account

The Instant Pool works like this. When you deposit into Btcpop’s instant pool, you receive your proportionate amount of the interest the pool generates by funding instant Bitcoin loans. So if you invest 1 Btc in the Instants pool which has a total of 100 Btc, you will receive 1% off all the interest the instant pool generates. The key thing about the pool, is that your Bitcoin is backed by Btcpop, and Btcpop assumes the risk of default. Your Bitcoin may be used and lent out as instant loans, but it’s backed up fully by Btcpop’s Bitcoin stored in a cold wallet. You can learn more about taking out Instant Bitcoin loans at this blog post.

For compariso

Here is a good list of Bitcoin Savings Accounts and an overview on how other Bitcoin Savings Accounts work.

 

Legacy Savings Account

Btcpop historically offered a set interest rate Bitcoin savings account. However, this feature has been disabled and replaced with the market driven Instants Account. This ensures the long term viability of this feature as interest rates are variable and a set interest rate could be unsustainable.

How the Instants Pool generates Money

Btcpop offers the unique service of Instant Loans and Instant Collateral Loans. These loans are mathematically calculated by Btcpop, and if you choose to accept the terms you receive the loans instantly. You must first verify through Btcpop’s system, and the amount you can borrow depends on certain variables. So for example, a verified user takes out an instant loan of .1 Btc over 2 months with .01 Btc of interest being due on repayment. When he pays back the .11Btc, .01 Btc of interest is paid out to the pool as reward. So following the 100 Btc pool example above, you would receive 1% of that .01 Btc interest. So your 1 Btc deposit in the pool earns .0001 Btc in interest for being on deposit when the user paid back their loan. 

For more information on taking out a Instant Bitcoin Loan or Instant Collateral Loan check out this blog post.

 

Your Bitcoin is not at risk

So I can already hear the skeptics saying “what about defaults? If people don’t pay back Bitcoin will be lost regardless of whose Bitcoin it is”. And they have a valid point. Bitcoin is finite and 100% ownership exist, so anything lent receiving interest has risk of not being paid back. Again the pool is backed and risk is assumed by Btcpop and consequently Btcpop’s owner. In reality the Instants Pool has actually lost Btcpop a significant amount of Btc with prior management (250 Btc+), but with improved coding, it is now profitable again. Depositors have never lost a Satoshi of their deposit during this time, and funds have always been withdraw-able at all times.

“Risk Free” doesn’t exist here on earth

I want to make it a point to dispel the myth that risk free exist anywhere here on earth. There is always risk where you store your value. If you store your value in gold, the gold can get stolen or the price can drop. In the fake money fiat world, there is a version of risk free, but its still not risk free. In the US for example, bank deposits are FDIC insured up to $100k. However, its still not completely risk free holding USD on deposit. Besides being a infinite money that can be decreased in value at the whim of a politician. Theft of your money also decreases its value (albeit in a tiny way). If a bank got robbed, FDIC insurance would make a payout to you in full, but on the back end a small portion of that value would be stolen from you in increased taxes or new printed money. So it is much less risk, but there is still risk.

 

Platform Risk

All funds in Btcpop, or any other Bitcoin site carry platform risk. This is why you can get .5%/day returns at times margin lending on Poloniex. Even though margin lending is protected with liquidation of borrower’s assets, there is still always a chance the whole system goes down, or that Poloniex gets hacked and your funds stolen. This is the same for any platform. So there is always the risk that Btcpop fails, and when you deposit here you assume that risk. However, even when you hold a private key there are risks that key is lost or stolen. My point is there is a small risk that Btcpop fails so your deposits are not risk free. However, I would argue the platform risk for Btcpop is much lower than most anywhere else. In the end Btcpop, is backed by a wealthy Bitcoin owner and his partner. Over the years his competence, trustworthiness, and philosophical ideals has lead me to trust him with my private keys almost more than my ability to securely store keys and passwords myself as an amateur computer user. You have to make this risk assessment yourself, but if the past events of Btcpop are any indicator, your funds are safe at Btcpop. 

Another thing to remember, that Btcpop is a P2P bank. So besides the Instant Loans, which Btcpop calculates and sets the rates for, Btcpop doesn’t hold that terribly much financial risk. Investors hold most if not all of the lending risk, which is why they also receive all of the interest for taking on that risk. So as long as Btcpop keeps control of its processes (which it does) and continues its extremely high security measures for handling coins (it also does). The platform risk for Btcpop is very limited.

Using the Instants Pool

Using the instants pool is very easy. Simply deposit your Bitcoin into the instants pool and earn interest. You can deposit directly into it via the wallet address, or just transfer from your regular Btcpop account. Withdrawing can be done instantly moving Bitcoin from your instant account to your main account. 

You can watch your holdings grow right from your dashboard. Above is my account statistics. I have held a varying amount of Btc in that account for the last 5 months (most of the time 5Btc or less) and I calculated my actual APR rate somewhere roughly between 7%-12% for the last 5 months. 

On your dashboard you can also track the total outstanding amount of instant loans the pool has lent out. The amount goes up and down and people take out and payback loans. When the amount goes down, you will see your interest go up. When the amount goes up, there will be more interest coming in the future.

General statistics are kept via INST1 shares. INST1 is a correlated share on the Btcpop market that represents a .0001 Btc investment in the Instants pool. So the share statistics are very similar to actual pool performance. As you can see APY based on IPO price is 11.28% over the 30 days, 12.44% last 90 days and 9.42% over the last 120 days. **Please note these rates are historic not guarantees for the future as the rate varies depending on use. 

If your motivated enough and it matters enough to you, you can view your statement and manually track ROI.

.

3 thoughts on “Btcpop’s “Risk Free” Interest Bearing Bitcoin Savings Account / Wallet

  1. The BTC I’ve deposited at BTCPOP.CO has been secure for months and I continue to earn interest just by keeping the money in the “Instant Account”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *