I know a guy who says he doesn’t want bitcoin because “I can’t stake them” - that’s what he said - and so he’d rather own proof-of-stake coins and tokens he can stake. Fair enough. However, I firmly believe that nothing beats Bitcoin, and probably nothing ever will, he says other cryptocurrencies are better. And so I told him to sell his BTC “so I can buy it”.

But that got me thinking, surely there must be platforms where you can earn interests on your BTC with stake-like APYs. I can think of at least two: Wirex and Nexo.

I’m gonna start with Wirex because that’s the app I’m a bit more familiar with. It was launched by two Russian IT specialists in 2014 and for a few years, it was basically the only exchange that offered crypto debit cards before it was popular. It must be said that they’ve had more than their fair share of trouble with the cards a few years ago even though it wasn't entirely their fault. I still remember the moment: I was having a pint in my favourite pub and got a text saying that my VISA card would be terminated 'effective immediately' # panik. The next day, after a little bit of digging, I found out that VISA had decided to abruptly cut every tie with the bank that Wirex and other providers (including platforms outside of the crypto space) were using to issue the cards. I’m not gonna tell you the name of the bank that pissed VISA off for two reasons. One, I don’t actually remember, and two, it doesn’t really matter.

Anyway Wirex is still alive and kicking, still offering debit cards (but it's on the Mastercard circuit now), and offering up to 10-14% APY on Bitcoin if you opt to have your interest paid out in their own token called WXT, operating on the Stellar blockchain and the Ethereum blockchain.

The other app is Nexo. I'm not as familiar with Nexo as I've only been using it for a few weeks but they offer up to 12% interest on Bitcoin if you hold at least 10% of your portoflio in their own token, called NEXO (duh), and opt to have your interest paid out in NEXO. Sorry I said Nexo like a thousand times.

I'll leave both links here, you can use them to get a $25 bonus sign-up bonus on Nexo (paid in BTC, top up your account $100 or more and hold for at least 30 days, any currency including stablecoins), and a $15 sign-up bonus on Wirex (paid in WXT, top up your account $100 or more in crypto). Hopefully that helps. Cheers.