Every platform advertises an APY. Almost none of them explain where the money comes from, what the fee is, or which tier of your balance actually earns the headline rate. We do — for savings accounts, staking, lending, stablecoin yield and DeFi, with the date we checked each figure.
CEX.IO is our featured earn platform: FCA-registered in the UK, licensed as a money transmitter across roughly 40 US states, and offering staking and savings with no lock-up. Earn is not available to US residents.
48 research pages
15 platforms verified
Primary sources only
No financial advice
Four engines, one misleading word
Search for crypto earn and you will find hundreds of pages listing platforms by advertised APY. Almost none of them answer the question that decides whether the number is worth anything: who is paying you, and out of what? That question has exactly four sensible answers, and everything else on this site follows from them.
The first engine is protocol rewards. Proof-of-stake networks issue new tokens to whoever helps validate transactions. When you stake Ethereum, Solana or Cosmos, the chain itself pays you. Nobody has to repay a loan for that money to arrive. What it costs you instead is dilution — the tokens are newly minted, so if the network issues more of them than it pays you, your share of the supply shrinks even as your balance grows.
The second is lending demand. Someone wants leverage, posts collateral and pays interest; you supply the asset and take a cut. This is what most "savings accounts" in crypto really are, whether the counterparty is a margin trader on an exchange, a retail borrower with a bitcoin-backed loan, or an institution nobody names. OKX states this plainly: Simple Earn assets "will be pooled and loaned to borrowers on our platform". Most of its competitors do not put it so directly.
The third is real-world interest. Tokenised money market funds and treasury products hold actual short-dated government debt and pass the coupon through on-chain. As of 16 September 2026 the tokenised treasury market stood at roughly $15.65 billion with an aggregate 7-day yield of 3.74% — slightly below the 3.97% you could get from the underlying T-bills, because the wrapper costs 25 to 50 basis points. What you buy with that difference is settlement speed and composability, not extra return.
The fourth is not yield at all. It is marketing spend. Coinbase's 3.50% on USDC is funded by Coinbase out of the interest on USDC reserves; it is discretionary, it has been cut twice in a year, and since 15 December 2025 it has been restricted to paying Coinbase One subscribers. Launch bonuses, tiered boosters and "spin the wheel" campaigns are the same category. They can be perfectly good deals. They are simply not a business model that scales with your balance.
What changed in 2025 and 2026
Two things reshaped this market, and both of them cut yields. The first is regulatory. The US GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, bars permitted payment stablecoin issuers from paying "any form of interest or yield… solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention" of a payment stablecoin. In the EU, MiCA already prohibits remuneration tied to how long you hold an e-money token. The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, which would have set federal market structure rules, failed a Senate cloture vote 49–50 on 15 September 2026 — so the US still has no market structure statute, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's proposed rules, expected around November 2026, will decide whether exchange "rewards" programmes survive in their current form. Ourregulation guide tracks this in detail.
The second is arithmetic. Ethereum's consensus-layer issuance scales with the inverse square root of the total amount staked, so as the staked pool grew past 43 million ETH — around 35% of supply — the per-validator yield compressed to about 2.46%. Ethena's sUSDe, which pays from the perpetual futures basis trade, went from roughly 27% at launch in February 2024 and a spike above 60%, to around 5% today. The liquid restaking sector shrank more than 90% from its peak. None of this was a scandal. It was a market finding its level.
How this site is organised
There are 48 pages here and they are meant to be read in a particular order if you are starting from scratch: understand the earning model first, then look at platforms, then look at what can go wrong. The links below take you into each layer.
Start with the earning model
Eight guides covering every way crypto pays you something. Each one explains the mechanism, the fee structure, the realistic rate range and the specific way it fails.
Fifteen platforms, checked against their own documentation
Exchanges, savings platforms, brokers and one licensed bank. For each we recorded the yield model, the headline rate and the condition attached to it, the commission, the lock-up, the geographic exclusions and the licences we could actually verify in a register. Where a provider contradicts itself, we say so.
Exchange-run staking and flexible savings with no lock-up, backed by an unusually long licence list.
Staking up to 12% · Savings up to 4%
ATOM leads staking; USDC, USDT and SOL lead savings. Rates are variable and set per asset.
Lock-up
None — staking and savings are both flexible
Fee
No commission stated on staking rewards; savings advertised as free to use
Access
Around 250 countries and territories. Not available to US residents.
Licensing
FCA-registered in the UK (FRN 1007192), ~40 US state money transmitter licences under NMLS 1804170, PCI DSS certified. No MiCA authorisation could be verified.
Nine more platforms with meaningfully different models — including the two that disclose their yield source most clearly, and the one regulated bank in the set.
This is the table we would want someone to read before their first deposit. It is deliberately not a ranking — each row is better than the others at something, and worse at something else. The realistic range column reflects what large, established venues were actually paying on major assets on 16 September 2026, not the best number anyone advertises.
Compiled from provider documentation, DefiLlama, Aavescan, Staking Rewards and rwa.xyz. Checked 16 September 2026. Ranges are indicative and move daily.
How to read an advertised rate
Nothing on this site saves you more money than learning to spot the four conditions that turn a headline number into something much smaller. Every one of these examples is taken from the provider's own published materials.
The balance tier
Bybit's flexible USDT product advertises 12% APR. That tier stops at 500 USDT. The next tier, from 500 to 1,000 USDT, pays 0.70%. Above 1,000 USDT it is 0.28%. On a 10,000 USDT balance, the headline rate therefore applies to 5% of your money and nine tenths of it earns 0.28%. Crypto.com uses the same shape with different numbers: the full advertised rate applies to the first US$3,000, then half that on the next US$27,000, then roughly a third of the reduced rate above US$30,000.
The commission
Staking commissions in this market run from 0% to 90%. Revolut says it passes on 100% of the rewards it receives. Binance takes 10% on ETH staking, OKX 15% of accrued returns, Kraken 25% to 30% depending on product and balance, Coinbase around 35% as standard, Uphold up to 50% on flexible staking, and Binance.US Soft-Staking takes 90%, leaving the user 10%. On an Ethereum staking APR of about 2.5%, a 35% commission costs roughly 89 basis points — which is more than half of the real, inflation-adjusted return.
The proportion actually deployed
Kraken's flexible staking page states that "Kraken will only stake a portion of your assets. You will receive rewards on up to 50% of the assets you choose to stake." The advertised APY is real; it applies to half your balance. This single sentence changes the effective yield by a factor of two and is easy to read straight past.
Nominal versus real
Cosmos advertises one of the highest staking yields in the market. Against roughly 12.67% annual token issuance, a 19.6% nominal APR works out to about 6.2% in real terms — still good, but a third of the headline. Sui is the cautionary case: 1.49% nominal against 2.54% inflation is a negative real yield, meaning stakers are diluted in token terms while watching their balance grow. The arithmetic and a full table sit instaking rewards compared.
The Bitcoin problem nobody advertises
Structural, not cyclical
Bitcoin is collateral, not a yield asset
Bitcoin has no native staking mechanism, so every BTC "interest" product is somebody borrowing your coins. The market for that is thin, because what people actually want is to borrow against Bitcoin, not to borrow Bitcoin itself.
You can see it directly in the data: wrapped BTC supplied to Aave v3 on Ethereum currently earns 0.00%, with $2.58 billion supplied and a utilisation rate of about 2.3%. Xapo Bank pays 0.25% and says so on the page. Ledn discontinued its Bitcoin Growth Account entirely on 1 July 2025, with its CEO arguing that the whole point of Bitcoin was to avoid "constantly reusing client assets to create leverage".
Yield behaves completely differently depending on what you own. Ethereum has a queue problem, Solana has an inflation problem, Bitcoin has a demand problem and stablecoins have a regulatory problem. These pages take each one on its own terms.
The 2022 cycle was not an accident of market conditions; it was a specific failure of a specific model. Celsius advertised up to 18% APY and a $750 million insurance policy that did not exist, froze withdrawals on 12 June 2022 and filed for Chapter 11 a month later. Voyager told customers their deposits were "FDIC-insured". BlockFi had already settled with the SEC and 32 states for $100 million in February 2022 — its interest account was found unlawfulbefore customers lost money. Gemini Earn users were caught by Genesis's collapse.
There is a detail in the aftermath that almost nobody explains, and it matters enormously. BlockFi's creditors achieved a "100% recovery" — of their US dollar claim valued at the July 2022 petition date. They were made whole in dollars at 2022 prices and missed everything that happened to crypto afterwards. Gemini Earn users were unusual in getting their actual coins back in kind. If you take one thing fromwhat happened to the CeFi lenders, make it that: in a crypto bankruptcy, "full recovery" and "getting your Bitcoin back" are not the same sentence.
None of this means crypto earning is unusable. It means the diligence is different from picking a bank. Our risk guide turns it into a checklist, and availability by country covers which products you can legally use where you live.
A sensible way to start
1
Decide what you are optimising for
Liquidity, simplicity or yield — you rarely get all three. A flexible product paying 3% that you can exit any day is a genuinely different instrument from a 90-day locked product paying 6%, and comparing their APYs alone tells you almost nothing.
2
Identify the engine
Staking, lending, real-world interest or promotion. If the provider will not say, treat that as information. Where to earn crypto walks through how to tell them apart from the product page alone.
3
Read the conditions attached to the headline rate
Balance tiers, commission, the proportion actually deployed, the term, and whether the rate is contractual or discretionary. Bitpanda, for example, publishes that its 7% stablecoin rate is 3% contractual plus a bonus paid at its "sole discretion".
4
Check you can actually use it
US residents are excluded from a surprising number of earn products, including CEX.IO Earn. Several large exchanges restricted EEA users after MiCA transitional periods ended on 1 July 2026. See availability by country.
5
Size the position like credit, not like a deposit
You are lending to a company or trusting a contract. Assume a total loss is possible for any single venue, and size accordingly. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to use any particular platform.
Frequently asked questions
What does "crypto earn" actually mean?
"Crypto earn" is an umbrella label that platforms use for any product that pays you something for holding a crypto asset with them. Underneath that single label sit at least four different businesses: passing on proof-of-stake rewards, lending your coins to borrowers, buying short-dated government debt, and simply paying you a marketing subsidy out of company funds. The label is the same; the risk is not. Working out which one you are being offered is the single most useful thing you can do before depositing anything.
Is crypto earn the same as a savings account?
No. A bank savings account in the US, UK or EU is covered by a deposit guarantee scheme, and the bank is prudentially regulated for solvency. Crypto earn products are almost never covered by anything equivalent. The one clear exception we found is Xapo Bank, whose US dollar balances sit under the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to the equivalent of £120,000 — its crypto balances are explicitly not covered. Everywhere else, you are an unsecured creditor of a company.
What is a realistic return on crypto earning products?
As of 16 September 2026, the honest benchmark ranges are roughly: 2–3% on Ethereum staking, 3–6% on major stablecoins through established venues, close to zero on Bitcoin, and 5–20% nominal on smaller proof-of-stake chains where much of the yield is offset by token inflation. Against a 3-month US Treasury bill at 3.97%, most stablecoin yield in mainstream DeFi is currently at or below the risk-free rate. Anything materially above about 6% is being paid by leverage, credit risk, token emissions or a promotional budget.
Why is the advertised APY usually not the rate I get?
Because headline rates are nearly always conditional. Bybit advertises 12% on USDT but that tier caps at 500 USDT, with 0.28% above 1,000. Crypto.com pays its full rate on the first US$3,000, then half, then less than a third. Kraken’s flexible staking only stakes up to 50% of your balance. Nexo’s best numbers require a loyalty tier, a fixed term and taking your interest in NEXO tokens. None of this is hidden, but none of it is in the headline either. Our crypto interest rates guide takes these apart one by one.
Can I earn interest on Bitcoin?
Very little, and that is a structural fact rather than a market timing issue. Bitcoin has no native staking, so any BTC yield has to come from lending it to someone. Supply BTC wrappers to Aave v3 on Ethereum and the current supply rate is 0.00% — people borrow against Bitcoin, they do not borrow Bitcoin. Xapo Bank pays 0.25% on BTC savings and says so plainly. Ledn stopped paying BTC yield entirely in July 2025 on principle. Read earn Bitcoin and Bitcoin yield and BTCfi for the full picture.
Is staking safer than yield farming?
Usually, but not for the reason most people assume. Native staking on a large chain pays you newly issued tokens for securing the network, which is a protocol-level cash flow that does not depend on anyone repaying a loan. Yield farming layers smart contracts, incentive tokens and often leverage on top of each other. The catch is that staking has its own specific risks — lock-up queues, slashing on some chains, and token inflation that can make a high nominal yield negative in real terms. We compare them properly in staking vs yield farming.
Do I pay tax on crypto earnings?
In most jurisdictions yes, and often at the moment you receive the reward rather than when you sell it. The US position since Revenue Ruling 2023-14 is that staking rewards are ordinary income at fair market value when you gain dominion and control over them. That means you can owe cash tax on rewards that are still locked. The UK generally treats them as miscellaneous income; EU treatment varies widely by member state. Our tax overview explains the mechanics — it is not tax advice, and you should talk to a professional about your own position.
How does this site make money, and does it affect what you write?
Some outbound links on this site are partner links. They do not change the figures we publish, the risks we flag or the order in which we present the facts — every rate, fee and restriction here comes from the provider’s own documentation or a primary regulatory source, with the date we checked it. Where a provider contradicts itself or fails to disclose something material, we say so regardless of commercial relationship. The full approach is on our methodology page.
Read the research, then decide for yourself
We publish what we verified, when we verified it, and what we could not confirm. Start with the platform comparison, the how to earn crypto guide, or our review methodology if you want to know how we work before you trust a word of it.
