Vauld Crypto Review – Features, Pros & Cons, & Pricing

Vauld was a crypto savings and lending platform, but in the summer of 2022 it had to suspend customer deposits and withdrawals because it was not capitalized enough.

However, crypto exchange Nexo recently announced that it would acquire Vauld and all its customer assets.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Vauld has suspended all withdrawals, trading, and deposits as of July 4, 2022. This is not a good sign as it shows the company was not capitalized enough to handle the withdrawals.

Pros & Cons

About Vauld

Vauld is a cryptocurrency lending platform that began in 2018. The company, formerly known as Bank of Hodlers, was founded by Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian and currently operates from Singapore.

Vauld’s goal is to bring the foundational elements of banking to crypto users. This means empowering its customers to grow their wealth, easily exchange crypto, and use digital assets as a store of value.

Overall, Vauld is comparable to other crypto lending companies like BlockFi and Celsius. However, Vauld is still an effective way to earn passive income through crypto lending thanks to its competitive interest rates and pricing.

What It Offers

Vauld has two main features: crypto interest accounts and crypto-backed loans. In other words, Vauld lets you leverage your crypto to create extra income and to access additional capital.

Though less emphasized, you can also trade crypto on Vauld and can even automate your investing strategy. Here’s how each Vauld feature works and how you can maximize your earnings.

Earn Interest With Your Crypto

With Vauld lending, you earn daily interest on dozens of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. If you’re currently holding your digital assets in a crypto wallet like Ledger or on an exchange, it might be time to put your assets to work instead.

Vauld calculates crypto interest daily and pays out weekly. And, one perk of using Vauld is that you can make flexible or fixed-term deposits. A fixed-term deposit locks up your crypto for a minimum of one month but earns you extra interest.

Here are some of Vauld’s interest rates for popular cryptocurrencies:

Vauld pays you in-kind, meaning the interest you earn is the same as the tokens you deposit.  Additionally, Vauld supports some pretty interesting tokens, not just popular cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

For example, you can deposit metaverse tokens like Mana from the game Decentraland. Vauld also supports many DeFi tokens like Uniswap’s Uni.

The main downside of Vauld is that many tokens only pay 1.00% as a base savings rate. This means you have to use fixed-term deposits to maximize income.

However, Vauld has a very lenient fixed-term deposit arrangement. The minimum period is one month, but you can opt-out of a deposit anytime without paying penalties. If you opt out early, you simply earn the base interest rate on your deposit rather than the fixed-term rate.

Crypto-Backed Loans

Another way to leverage your crypto with Vauld is to use it to take out loans. Its crypto-backed loans offer a way to access capital without needing to go through a central bank.

The minimum loan amount is $1,000. You can borrow up to a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 66.67%. Your LTV is the ratio of the loan you’re taking out to the value of your collateral. As an example, you might deposit $1,000 of Bitcoin as collateral to take out approximately $660 worth of a token as a loan with Vauld’s maximum LTV ratio.

Vauld lets you pay back your loans at anytime and charges various interest rates depending on the token you take out as a loan:

Vauld doesn’t charge additional fees for taking out loans. Additionally, one perk of crypto-backed loans is that you get approval instantly without having to go through a bank or wait on a private lender to approve your request.

That said, Vauld doesn’t have the best borrowing rates. For example, competitors like Celsius let you take out loans with APRs as low as 1.00%. This is because Celsius offers more flexible LTV ratios so you can take out more conservative loans.

In short, Vauld has a competitive crypto interest product. But for loans, you’re better off using competitors like Celsius.

Crypto Trading

Vauld has two exchange options to help you fund your Vauld account so you can earn interest or take out loans.

The first option is to use Vauld’s Instant Swap feature to swap various cryptocurrencies. Once you select your swapping pair and how much you’re swapping, Vauld displays how much of your desired token you’re going to receive.

Vauld has plenty of swapping pairs for popular cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum, so you can essentially turn these tokens into any token Vauld supports. However, many altcoins are only swappable for stablecoins like USDC. Furthermore, some tokens like Dogecoin are trade-only tokens and aren’t swappable.

Vauld also has a Pro Trading feature that lets you place more specific trades rather than instantly swapping. You can place limit or market orders, and there’s some basic charting tools to help you make more informed trades.

Instant Swapping is simple and ideal if you’re trading small amounts of crypto. In contrast, Pro Trading is useful for larger trades since you have more control over when trades execute.

Vauld charges varying maker/taker fees depending on the token pair. Typically, you pay a 0.10% maker or taker fee which is similar to cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance. You can view a list of trading fees on Vauld’s website.

Automatic Investment Plans (AIPs)

One new Vauld feature is its automatic investment plans (AIPs). If you want to automatically invest in baskets of cryptocurrencies to diversify your portfolio, this feature is for you.

Vauld’s AIPs are similar to robo-advisors like Titan Crypto. You can choose specific cryptos to automatically invest in, and Vauld lets you invest using different conditions.

For example, you can enable time-based automatic investments so you regularly contribute to your crypto portfolio. You can also set up rules like investing in different tokens if prices drop by a specific percentage.

If you need a helping hand, Vauld has several pre-built crypto baskets you can invest in, including:

• All In On Crypto: Contains a little bit of everything for maximum exposure
• Decentralized Everything: DeFi basket that focuses on BTC, ETH, XLM, and BAT.
• Future Utility: Contains handpicked trade-only tokens like Polkadot, Chainlink, and Aave.
• All In On Altcoins: Altcoin basket that contains even splits of ETH, XRP, XLM, and BAT.

AIPs are a unique feature you don’t find with most crypto interest accounts. Plus, you only need $2 USD or 100 INR to start an AIP. Vauld also states it's adding purchasing support for British Pounds and the Euro in the future.

The best part is you don’t pay fees for using Vauld’s AIP feature. You also earn interest on the tokens you purchase just like a regular crypto interest account.

Vauld Referral Program

The Vauld referral program pays you a variety of bonuses for referring new users. Currently, you receive lifetime bonuses from three different referral activities:

• 40% of trading fees from Pro Trading
• 5% of interest paid out
• 5% of interest accrued on loans

The 5% lifetime bonus on interest is what makes this referral program so enticing. You can also invite as many people to join Vauld as you want.

A small downside is that Vauld doesn’t usually run sign-up bonuses like companies like Coinbase and BlockFi do. New users can get discounts on trading fees, but you’re not getting free Bitcoin or other crypto for signing up.

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Pricing & Fees

As mentioned, Vauld charges various interest rates on loans depending on the token. Additionally, Vauld typically charges a 0.10% maker/taker fee for most trading pairs.

Aside from that, Vauld doesn’t charge account or deposit fees. There aren’t platform fees for withdrawals either. However, you pay dynamic network fees for withdrawals, which can get pretty steep for cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum where transaction times are slow and gas fees can get expensive.

That said, network fees are an unavoidable cost of doing business, so this isn’t a unique disadvantage of using Vauld.

Vauld doesn’t have withdrawal limits and withdrawals usually process instantly unless you’re withdrawing $100,000 or more. For these large withdrawals, Vauld manually confirms the transaction with you which takes a maximum of six hours.

Vauld Alternatives

There are numerous crypto savings accounts out there, but this is great news for crypto investors because it gives you more choice.

So, if you’re wondering if Vauld is right for you, your first step should be to compare its interest rates with the competition. Here’s how Vauld stacks up against against BlockFi and Celsius, two of the most popular interest accounts:

It’s worth noting that many crypto investors use several savings accounts to cherry-pick the highest interest rates. Using multiple platforms also helps diversify risk in case one company goes out of business or faces regulatory issues for whatever reason.

Ultimately, Vauld has competitive interest rates and can go toe-to-toe with the more popular players in the space. It’s also paying some of the highest rates on stablecoins like USDT. And if you want to automatically invest in crypto, Vauld’s AIPs are a unique feature you can try.

Account Opening Process

You create a Vauld account with your email address or by connecting through Gmail, Coinbase, Facebook, Twitter, or Apple.

From there, you complete know-your-customer verification to unlock any Vauld feature. The verification involves:

• Uploading government-issued ID like a passport, driver’s license, or national ID
• Uploading proof of residence
• Completing a liveness video

KYC requirements are fairly standard these days and you face the same requirements with other lending companies like Celsius and BlockFi.

Vauld Customer Service

There are several ways to get in touch with Vauld customer service. The fastest method is to use the live chat feature once you create an account. According to the chat widget, Vauld replies to messages in about 20 minutes.

Vauld also has a help desk with resources to help answer common questions users have. You can also email [email protected] with general questions or questions about data collection.

Safety & Security

As a Singapore-based company, Vauld isn’t subject to U.S. regulations. This means Vauld isn’t FDIC-insured, nor is the company even a bank.

The reality is that crypto lending companies present some risks for investors. However, market volatility and hacks are two of the main security risks to consider.

Thankfully, Vauld takes several steps to reduce lending risk and improve overall security. For starters, it holds most of its funds in cold storage, meaning funds aren’t vulnerable to hackers.

Vauld also works with BitGo as its custodian for its primary lending fund. This fund has $100 million in insurance which covers digital assets under events like theft and hacks.

These security steps are a good sign for Vauld. Users can also enable multi-factor authentication and whitelist devices, helping protect your private wallet keys.

The Bottom Line

With so many crypto lending companies on the market, it can be difficult to know which option is right for you.

The best way to determine if Vauld is worth it is to compare its interest rates against competitors like Celsius, BlockFi, and Uphold. Interest rates change across the industry quite often, but it’s not uncommon for one platform to have higher rates than others for certain cryptos.

As for crypto-backed loans, you’re better off with a company like Celsius due to its loan flexibility and low interest rates.

Ultimately, Vauld is a serious competitor in this space. If you have a large portfolio and want to earn passive income, you can always deposit crypto with Vauld and several competitors to maximize yield while reducing risk.

Vauld Features