Uphold and Exa plan to bring crypto credit card and yield service to the mass market - Chainwire

San Francisco, California, February 26th, 2025, Chainwire

• Users deposit crypto into Exactly Protocol to access credit or yield
• Loans spendable on world’s first globally-accessible, on-chain credit card
• Buy today, pay tomorrow, without selling your crypto
• Supports USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC, and OP as collateral
• Product to launch in Latin America first

Uphold, a leading on-chain infrastructure provider, and Exactly, a decentralized lending protocol, have today announced a proposed partnership that will allow borrowers to take out crypto-secured loans, spendable on a credit card, and lenders to earn yield. 

The Uphold proposal was approved today by the Exactly Protocol DAO and is designed to bring customers an innovative credit card backed by crypto assets, deliver increased liquidity to the Exactly Protocol, and integrate the card into Uphold. The service will initially be available to users in Latin America.

The service combines the first fixed-rate DeFi loans with an innovative crypto-enabled credit card. It solves a major pain point for customers who want to make daily purchases leveraging the value of their crypto without having to sell their holdings. Users have the option to receive a credit card with repayments split into fixed-rate installments.

“We’re very excited that our Exactly partnership leapfrogs other CeFi/DeFi offerings because it delivers real-world spendability against crypto,” said Simon McLoughlin, CEO of Uphold. “This is DeFi for daily life delivering on the fundamental promise of crypto: universal access to financial services 24/7.”

Under the proposed partnership, Uphold intends to invest in EXA governance tokens and serve as the exclusive CeFi distribution partner. Uphold expects to embed the service into the Uphold App on a white-label basis in regions outside Europe and North America. 

Businesses who build on the Uphold platform will also be able to offer the service to their customers in certain markets. 

Here’s how it works:

• Collateral and credit limit: Deposited assets act as collateral, determining the user’s credit limit. Deposits made into the Exa App are allocated to Exactly Protocol’s lending markets, generating variable yield based on borrower demand.
• Onchain borrowing: When a user makes a purchase using their card, the Exa App borrows the required amount on their behalf from Exactly Protocol’s fixed-rate lending markets. The borrowed funds are converted to USD and sent directly to the merchant. This interest rate is fixed and determined at the time of the transaction.
• Onchain lending and yield: Lenders who wish to supply funds can do so in the protocol. The protocol adjusts interest rates of borrowers based on the available lending capital, and as borrowers pay back their debt at a fixed rate, the lenders receive yield on their capital.  
• Installments and repayment: Users can repay the loan in up to six fixed installments, scheduled every 28 days. Users can also pay off their balance at any time and free up credit for future purchases.

“DeFi has opened up huge opportunities for financial freedom, but adoption hasn’t reached ordinary people owing to usability issues,” said McLoughlin. “For most people, managing seed phrases, signing on-chain transactions, and dealing with volatile gas fees are massive hurdles. In addition, there are few merchants who will accept crypto for payments. We’re thrilled to solve such problems with Exactly Protocol by stripping away technical complexity and opening up on-chain yield/credit in a practical way.”

About Uphold

Uphold is a financial technology company that believes on-chain services are the future of finance. It provides modern infrastructure for on-chain payments, banking and investments. Offering Consumer Services, Business Services and Institutional Trading, Uphold makes pioneering crypto-enabled services easy and trusted for millions of customers in more than 140 countries. 

Uphold integrates with more than 30 trading venues, including centralized and decentralized exchanges, to deliver superior liquidity and optimal execution. Uphold never loans out customer assets and is always 100% reserved.

The company pioneered radical transparency and uniquely publishes its assets and liabilities every 30 seconds on a public website (https://uphold.com/en-us/transparency). Uphold is regulated in the U.S. by FinCen and State regulators, and is registered in the UK and Canada with the FCA and FINTRAC respectively and in Europe with the Financial Crime Investigation Service under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania. To learn more about Uphold’s products and services, users can visit uphold.com. 

Notes:

The partnership and investment are subject to due diligence and required approvals.