Compared to Traditional Banks, Crypto Lenders See Booming Growth

A lukewarm U.S. economy is making big banks like JPMorgan Chase struggle to produce fast loan growth – even with interest rates close to historic lows. Yet, in the white-hot cryptocurrency industry, lenders are burgeoning.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 2.1 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, on par with the third quarter’s clip, even after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times earlier in 2019 to stimulate growth. For the full year, the economy expanded 2.3 percent, a slowdown from 2018’s 2.9 percent, according to the report.

If there’s any softening in the economy, it hasn’t been felt by lenders like Genesis. The New York-based trading firm that lends cash alongside cryptocurrencies like bitcoin said Thursday in a report that loans increased by 21 percent during the fourth quarter to $545 million, driven by demand from big investors as well as aggregators of smaller loans in Asia and Europe.       

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