What Nexo’s move back to the US means for crypto lending

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Crypto lender Nexo — one of the few survivors from the collapse of the lending sector — is returning to the US. 

The announcement took place at an “exclusive” event with Donald Trump Jr. and represents yet another sign the Trump administration wants to open the US back up to crypto. 

“The key to everything crypto is going to be the regulatory framework,” Trump said in a press release. 

Nexo says both retail and institutional customers will be able to access its products suite, which includes “high-yield crypto savings accounts, asset-backed credit lines, advanced trading, and institutional-grade liquidity solutions.”

Back in December 2022, Nexo announced that it would “gradually” exit the US, citing an unclear regulatory environment. BlockFi, FTX, Celsius and Voyager had all collapsed by then. 

“Our decision comes after more than 18 months of good-faith dialogue with US state and federal regulators which has come to a dead end,” Nexo said at the time, adding that it had attempted to “provide requested information and to proactively modify its business in response to their concerns.”

Fast-forward to now, and we’re in a totally different environment. 

Nexo isn’t the first to capitalize on that — OKX said just a few weeks ago that it was opening up OKX US in California. As I wrote on Friday, Pantera’s also aiming to expand the amount of capital it invests in US-based projects. 

It was a significant statement from Paul Veradittakit, given that a large portion of Pantera’s capital has gone to global projects, and because one of the earliest approaches to crypto from Veradittakit and Dan Morehead was to identify firms that adopted Coinbase’s approach to non-US markets.

Here’s the thing: Nexo’s announcement isn’t just another crypto company coming back to the US. My early take on this is that it shows the potential resurgence of the crypto lending market, which has pretty much been dead on arrival since 2022. 

If that sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because Galaxy first noted the potential resurgence earlier this month, when it reported that CeFi lending is up 73% following the collapse. 

Overall, the resurgence of crypto lending is healthy, but Nexo’s move is simply a step. More regulatory work is needed to ensure that nothing like 2022 happens again.

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