BlockFi just gathered up $50 million to lend to bitcoin and ethereum holders who don’t w…

Because cryptocurrency prices are almost comically volatile — owing to challenges involved in valuing them, the fact that most institutional investors are still sitting on the sidelines, and various other reasons — it’s hard to know when or why to sell.

Enter crypto-asset backed loans, a small but growing number of which are beginning to spring up to lend money to cryptocurrency holders who don’t want to offload their holdings but also don’t necessarily want so much of their assets tied up in cryptocurrencies.

Among these is Lendingblock, a London-based startup that enables holders of crypto assets to lend them out and accrue interest on their holdings, while giving borrowers access to the assets. Other outfits — and we aren’t vouching for these so much as letting you know they exist — include CoinLoan, a 1.5-year-old outfit in Estonia that is itself trying to raise money through an initial coin offering; Nexo, a Switzerland-based platform powered by a…