Crypto glossary
Crypto savings (earn products)
Crypto earn products are savings-style accounts on exchanges and apps that pay interest on deposited crypto, funded by lending, staking or the platform itself.
Most large exchanges and many wallet apps offer an "earn" section where users deposit bitcoin, ether or stablecoins and receive a stated annual rate. Flexible products let users withdraw at any time; fixed-term ones lock funds for days or months in exchange for a higher rate. Behind the rate, the platform lends the assets to traders and institutions, stakes them on proof-of-stake networks, deploys them in DeFi or simply subsidises the yield as marketing.
For many users these products are the first contact with crypto yield, because they look like a bank savings account and require no technical knowledge. Yields on staking-based products tend to track network rewards, while lending-based ones rise and fall with demand for leverage.
The risks are those of an unsecured creditor. When Celsius, BlockFi and Voyager failed in 2022, customers with earn balances became claimants in bankruptcy and waited years for partial recoveries. Terms usually let the platform use the deposited assets, there is no deposit insurance, and regulators in several countries have restricted or banned such products for retail clients.
Example
A user moves 5,000 USDC into an exchange's flexible earn product advertised at 5% a year; the exchange lends the coins to margin traders and credits interest to her account daily.