Private clients · Family offices · Advisers
Crypto loans for high-net-worth individuals and family offices
Crypto loans for high-net-worth individuals are collateralized loans of US dollars or stablecoins, usually six figures or more, secured on bitcoin or ether that the borrower keeps. At that size the terms that matter most are custody, margin mechanics, the borrowing entity and tax, more than the headline rate. Crypto Loans HQ introduces enquiries from US$100,000 to lenders whose criteria fit; it does not lend.
Key takeaways
- Size changes who lends. Some published products stop in the single-digit millions: Xapo Bank lends up to US$5,000,000 and Nexo's credit line up to US$2,000,000. Above that, Nexo publishes lending of up to US$200 million through its private service, and Unchained sends US$5 million or more to an institutional desk.
- Custody comes before the rate. On 9 November 2023 the Celsius bankruptcy court held that collateral posted by retail borrowers who objected to the plan was property of the estate.
- The borrowing entity narrows the field. Unchained lends only to businesses; Arch published that it serves business and trust borrowers in 44 US states and territories.
- At 50% LTV, a 37.5% fall reaches an 80% liquidation level. Starting at 30% leaves room for a 62.5% fall. Arithmetic, ignoring interest.
- A liquidation is the taxable moment. In many jurisdictions taking the loan is not a disposal; a forced sale of collateral generally is.
Why holders with size borrow instead of selling
The reasons are the same as for borrowing against any concentrated asset: the holder needs cash and wants to keep the position. Six common uses:
Property
A purchase
Loan proceeds spent on property or another large asset, with the loan secured on the crypto, not on what it buys.
Business
Operating capital
Funding a company or a new venture without selling the position that built the wealth.
Portfolio
Diversification
Moving part of the exposure into other assets while the original holding stays in place.
Obligations
A known bill
A tax payment, a capital call or a large expense, met without a sale at a moment the market chooses.
Timing
A bridge
Covering the gap between a commitment and a known future inflow.
Estates
Estate liquidity
Cash for executors or trustees while a position is held, or sold in an orderly way.
Each use keeps the price exposure and adds a liquidation trigger and an interest cost. The guide to borrowing against bitcoin instead of selling sets out that trade-off, and crypto financing compares the structures that deliver the money: term loans, revolving lines and corporate facilities.
What changes at six, seven and eight figures
Below a few million dollars, lenders mostly apply the LTV ladders and terms they publish. Above that, terms are increasingly negotiated, and custody, documentation and the borrowing entity become part of the deal rather than a form.
| Loan size | Who typically lends | How terms are set | What lenders published |
|---|---|---|---|
| US$100,000 to US$1 million | Specialist lenders and banks with published products | Published LTV ladders and terms | Unchained's minimum for business loans is US$150,000 |
| US$1 million to US$5 million | The same lenders at the top of their ranges, and private desks | Largely published, with room on term and custody | Nexo's credit line runs to US$2,000,000; Xapo Bank lends up to US$5,000,000 |
| US$5 million to US$25 million | Institutional and private-client desks | Negotiated | Unchained sends US$5 million or more to an institutional desk; Galaxy's lending desk serves qualifying institutions, accredited individuals and corporations |
| Above US$25 million | Institutional desks and bespoke facilities | Negotiated, often with bespoke custody | Nexo publishes lending of up to US$200 million through its private service; corporate facilities run larger, as MARA's US$750 million of August 2026 loans show |
| The bands organize the published facts; they are not thresholds any lender uses. Firms are named only to describe what each published, accessed September 2026; naming a firm is not a recommendation and implies no relationship with Crypto Loans HQ. | |||
Choosing the borrowing entity
Who borrows decides which lenders can lend and what they ask for. Holders of size often own crypto through more than one wrapper, and the loan is usually made to whichever of them owns the collateral.
| Borrower | What lenders published (September 2026) | What you are commonly asked for |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | Most published products; Ledn, Figure, Xapo Bank and SALT lend to individuals | Identity, address and source of funds |
| Company or holding company | Unchained lends only to businesses; Arch serves businesses in 44 US states and territories | Constitutional documents, the owners and controllers, and authority to borrow and pledge |
| Trust | Arch lists trust borrowers among those it serves | The trust deed and evidence of the trustees' authority |
| Family office | Two Prime lists family offices among its institutional borrowers | As for the entity that owns the collateral |
| What is asked for varies by lender and location; the lender's own onboarding list governs. | ||
Ownership and control checks have a legal basis in the US. Under FinCEN's customer due diligence rule, covered financial institutions, which include banks and broker-dealers, must identify each individual who owns 25% or more of a legal-entity customer and one individual with significant responsibility to control it. Lenders outside that rule commonly run equivalent checks. Tax, estate and control consequences of borrowing through an entity are for your own advisers.
Custody: the question that decides a lender failure
At six figures and above, the custody clause matters more than a point of interest. It decides who can move the collateral, whether the lender may re-use it, and what you hold if the lender fails.
| Model | Who can move the collateral | Re-use, as published | Published examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lender custody, re-use permitted | The lender | Permitted by the contract: pledge, re-pledge, lend or sell | Celsius's retail loan terms, as quoted by the bankruptcy court (2023) |
| Custody with limited re-use | The lender, through its custodian | Only to named funding partners or financing vehicles; not lent out | Ledn (custodied loans) |
| Segregated custody, custodian named | A named custodian, on the lender's instruction | Stated not to occur | Arch (Anchorage Digital); Milo (Coinbase and BitGo) |
| Bank-held | The bank that made the loan | “No rehypothecation of Bitcoin” | Xapo Bank |
| 2-of-3 multisig | Any two of the borrower, the lender and a key agent | Stated not to occur; no single party can move the coins | Unchained (business loans) |
| Descriptions are each firm's own, accessed September 2026, not legal conclusions about how any structure would fare in an insolvency. | |||
The record from 2022 and 2023 is specific. On 4 January 2023 the Celsius court held that assets in about 600,000 Earn accounts, worth about US$4.2 billion, had become Celsius's property under its terms of use. On 9 November 2023 it held the same for collateral posted by retail borrowers who objected to the plan. In each of the failures of that period, customers' rights turned on the contract terms and on whether assets were segregated. The guide to bitcoin loan rehypothecation and custody covers the cases in depth.
Stress-testing the loan before you take it
The starting LTV decides how much room the loan has. The table applies the calculator's arithmetic to four starting points on US$10,000,000 of bitcoin, against a 70% margin call and an 80% liquidation level, the levels Arch published.
| Starting LTV | Loan on US$10,000,000 of bitcoin | Price fall to a 70% margin call | Price fall to 80% liquidation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30% | US$3,000,000 | 57.1% | 62.5% |
| 40% | US$4,000,000 | 42.9% | 50.0% |
| 50% | US$5,000,000 | 28.6% | 37.5% |
| 60% | US$6,000,000 | 14.3% | 25.0% |
| Arithmetic: price fall = 1 − starting LTV ÷ threshold. Accrued interest, fees and cure windows are ignored. Margin-call and liquidation levels are set by each lender; the LTV calculator runs any combination. | |||
Three things follow from the arithmetic. A reserve of collateral or cash that could be posted inside a 24-hour cure window is what stops a call becoming a sale. Whether the lender sells part or all at liquidation decides what is left afterwards. And some lenders offer automatic top-ups: Ledn's optional Auto Top-Up moves bitcoin from the borrower's own account when the LTV touches 70%, to bring it back to 68%.
Figure and SALT also publish optional paid products under which price moves do not trigger a margin call during the term. Figure states that liquidation can still follow if the loan becomes delinquent. The guide to bitcoin loan margin calls walks through a call from trigger to sale.
Confidentiality and compliance
Holders of size often want an enquiry kept close. An enquiry sent to Crypto Loans HQ goes only to lenders or desks whose criteria may fit, and only with your consent, which we ask for by email before anything is shared. What is collected, and who can receive it, is set out in the privacy notice.
Confidential is not the same as unverified. Every lender runs identity verification, anti-money-laundering and source-of-funds checks before it lends, and for a company or trust it identifies the people who own or control it. Crypto Loans HQ does not run those checks and cannot waive them.
Tax points to take to your adviser
Tax is where borrowing against crypto is most often misdescribed. Borrowing is not a tax strategy; these are the general points a tax adviser will want to discuss.
- The loan itself. In many jurisdictions taking a loan against an asset is not itself a disposal. In the UK, HMRC's CRYPTO61640 treats a platform's right to deal with collateral “as it wishes” as a strong indicator of a disposal; it is written for DeFi lending, so applying it to a centralized lender is an inference to confirm.
- A liquidation. A forced sale of collateral is generally a taxable disposal, at a time the lender, not you, chooses.
- The interest. In the US, interest is allocated by tracing what the loan proceeds were spent on, and the allocation “is not affected by the use of an interest in any property to secure the repayment of such debt” (26 CFR 1.163-8T). Investment interest is deductible only up to net investment income (IRS Topic 505).
The guide are crypto loans taxable sets out what IRS, HMRC, ATO and CRA guidance says. This is general information; take advice from a qualified tax adviser.
Risk
Risks to weigh before borrowing
- Margin calls and forced liquidation. A price fall raises the LTV. The lender can demand more collateral or a part repayment within 24 or 48 hours at the lenders cited here, and sells collateral if the call is not met or the liquidation level is reached. On a large position, the sale happens at the size and speed the lender chooses.
- Counterparty and custody risk. The collateral sits with the lender or its custodian for the life of the loan. If the contract allows rehypothecation and the lender becomes insolvent, you may hold only a creditor's claim, as objecting Celsius borrowers did. BlockFi and Genesis also filed for Chapter 11 in 2022 and 2023.
- Tax on a liquidation. A liquidation is a sale, and a sale is generally a taxable event, at a moment you did not choose.
- Concentration. A loan against a concentrated position adds leverage to it: the same fall that hurts the holding can force a sale of it.
Working with your adviser, and with us
An adviser, such as an RIA, private banker, accountant or lawyer, can make the enquiry for a client and stay involved to documentation; crypto loan referrals for advisers explains how that runs. Either way, the enquiry needs the asset, the approximate size, where the borrower is resident or established, and what kind of borrower it is. We check it against lenders' published criteria and, with consent, present it to those whose criteria fit. The lender sets the terms, and you contract with it directly.
The stages are set out on how it works, the eligibility criteria on who we work with, and the compensation model on how we are paid.
General information, not advice. This page describes crypto-backed loans for high-net-worth borrowers in general terms. It is not an offer to lend or to arrange a loan on particular terms, and it is not investment, legal or tax advice. Firms are named only to describe what they published, as dated; naming a firm is not a recommendation and implies no relationship with Crypto Loans HQ. Terms are set only by the lender. Take advice from qualified tax and legal advisers before borrowing against, or selling, a crypto asset. How we are paid.
Primary sources
- Xapo Bank: Borrow (accessed September 2026)
- Nexo: Borrow (accessed September 2026)
- Unchained: loans and loan collateral (accessed September 2026)
- Arch: home page, general FAQs and margin calls (accessed September 2026)
- Galaxy: Lending (accessed September 2026)
- Two Prime: Lending (accessed September 2026)
- Ledn: Bitcoin-backed loans (accessed September 2026)
- Figure: crypto-backed loan and Liquidation Protection (accessed September 2026)
- SALT: home page and SALT Shield (accessed September 2026)
- Milo: home page (accessed September 2026)
- MARA Holdings: Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 (filed 6 August 2026)
- US Bankruptcy Court, S.D.N.Y., In re Celsius Network LLC: opinion on Earn account assets (4 January 2023) and memorandum opinion (9 November 2023)
- Kroll: Genesis Global Holdco, LLC Chapter 11 case information and US Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey: BlockFi Inc.
- 31 CFR 1010.230: Beneficial ownership requirements for legal entity customers (FinCEN customer due diligence rule)
- HMRC Cryptoassets Manual, CRYPTO61640 (updated 28 November 2025)
- 26 CFR 1.163-8T and IRS Topic 505, interest expense
Crypto loans for high-net-worth individuals: frequently asked questions
How large a crypto loan can a high-net-worth individual get?
Size is set by the collateral and the lender. At a 50% loan-to-value ratio, US$10,000,000 of bitcoin supports a US$5,000,000 loan. Published products ran up to US$5,000,000 at Xapo Bank in September 2026, and Nexo published lending of up to US$200 million through its private service. Crypto Loans HQ takes enquiries of US$100,000 or more.
Can a family office or trust borrow against crypto?
Yes, where a lender's criteria fit. Unchained lends only to businesses, and Arch published that it serves business and trust borrowers in 44 US states and territories. An entity borrower is asked for its constitutional documents, the authority of whoever signs, and the identity of the people who own or control it.
How is collateral protected if the lender fails?
No structure removes the risk, but custody terms decide how exposed you are. The features intended to reduce it are segregated custody with a named custodian, a contract that rules out rehypothecation, and a multisig vault in which the borrower holds a key. In the Celsius bankruptcy, re-usable collateral posted by objecting retail borrowers was held to be estate property.
Is a crypto loan enquiry kept confidential?
An enquiry sent to Crypto Loans HQ is shared only with lenders or desks whose criteria may fit, and only with your consent. Confidential does not mean unverified: every lender runs identity, anti-money-laundering and source-of-funds checks before it lends, including on the people who own or control a company or trust borrower.
Do I pay tax when I take a crypto loan?
In many jurisdictions taking a loan against an asset is not itself a disposal, but a liquidation of the collateral generally is, and a structure that lets the lender deal with the collateral as it wishes can be one too. Whether the interest is deductible follows the use of the loan proceeds. This is general information; take advice from a qualified tax adviser.
Can a crypto loan fund a property purchase?
The proceeds can be spent on a purchase, but the loan stays secured on the crypto, so its margin calls and liquidation terms still apply. Any mortgage lender involved will underwrite where the funds came from. Crypto Loans HQ does not arrange mortgages; the bitcoin mortgage guide covers mortgages that take crypto as collateral.
Private enquiries
A confidential enquiry, matched to criteria that fit.
Share the asset, the approximate size and the borrowing entity, directly or through your adviser. We check it against the criteria lenders publish and, with your consent, arrange an introduction. The lender sets every term and runs its own checks.