pledgeThe 3 best Bitcoin loans, ranked by safety — plus the one we'd actually tell a friend.
15 lenders. 8 safety factors. Below: our one pick for most people, the full top-3 by category, and the source-checked data behind the recommendation — last verified Jun 21, 2026.
How deep a BTC drawdown can your loan survive?
Assumes you start with the lender's typical opening LTV. The bar shows the BTC drawdown — from today's price — at which your loan would liquidate without you adding collateral.
Unchained41%85%
Xapo Bank50%80%
Arch25%80%
Ledn38%80%Aave9%77%
Coinbase / Morpho13%86%
Strike41%85%
Nexo40%83%
YouHodler5%95%How far can Bitcoin fall before the call — and before the sale?
Each bar is one lender, from your opening LTV outward. The first band is the cure zone — the BTC drawdown that triggers a margin call, where you can still post collateral or repay. The second is the danger zone— the further drop to forced liquidation. A single LTV number hides this gap; the wider the bar, the deeper a crash your loan survives.
$50,000 loan, 3 years, in dollars.
Total interest paid (compounded annually) on a $50,000 loan over 3 years at today's published APRs. DeFi lines assume rates stay near today's level — real variable rates will drift.
Renewable lenders ⟳: rows tagged ⟳ only publish terms shorter than 3 years (typically 12 months). The cost shown assumes you renew at today's rate at term-end; real cost depends on whether the lender renews and at what rate.
The case for borrowing isn't the rate. It's the tax bill you skip.
Same cash. Two paths. Adjust the sliders below to model your situation — both panels recompute live.
The real trade-off:
how much you can borrow vs how much it costs.
Each dot is one lender. X-axis is the highest LTV they'll write. Y-axis is their lowest published APR. Lower-left is the safety sweet spot: less leverage, less cost. Upper-right is yield-chase territory — high LTV gets you more dollars but at meaningfully worse rates.
The rate is a curve, not a point.
Each line is one lender's published APR plotted across the loan terms it offers. Most desks quote a single flat rate for every term (a horizontal line); a few publish just one term (a dot). SALT Lending is the exception that proves the rule — it prices 12mo / 36mo / 60mo at 7.49% / 8.24% / 8.49%, a genuine upward-sloping curve. Longer money costs more.
Plotted separately — floating DeFi. Aave (1.5–3.0%) and Maker (Sky) (9.0–16.0%) priceon a governance- or utilisation-set basis that moves with the market, so the published figures are an indicative band rather than a committed term curve. They are excluded from the lines above so a non-quote rate can't masquerade as a fixed offer.
Source: lender disclosures and rate pages, verified June 21, 2026. Each line merges every product a lender offers into one APR-by-term ladder; SALT's 12 / 36 / 60-month tiers are three products under one desk. Advertised “from” rates often reflect the lowest LTV or largest-loan tier; your quote may differ. Not financial advice.
Why these 3 specifically?
AaveUnchainedXapo BankWhere every lender is strong — and where the field is soft.
Each block is one lender; the eight tiles are its safety factors (label · weight% · 0–10 score), and the chip top-right is the weighted total. The ◆ dashedtile marks the cohort's softest factor (loss protection).
How to read it.Each cell is one lender's 0–10 score on one safety factor; the column header carries that factor's weight in the overall score. The Weighted column is the weighted average of the eight cells in its row — the same number that ranks the lenders above. Reading down a column shows where the whole field is strong or soft: loss protectionis the cohort's softest factor (field average 5.1 / 10), because few BTC lenders publish named insurance or a deposit-protection scheme — while rehypothecation policy is its strongest (field average 7.5 / 10). Unchained tops the matrix at 9.0 / 10.
Source: Pledge loan research, methodology v3.2 (8 factors, weights summing to 100%), snapshot Jun 21, 2026. Sub-scores are best-effort grades from public disclosure; the weighted total is recomputed from the published weights, so it cannot drift from the ranking. Rows marked * carry a pending-confidence score (thinner public evidence). Scores are editorial judgments, not a guarantee of safety. Not investment advice.
Sorted by safety. Methodology is the only input.
Pledge currently has no affiliate or referral relationships with any lender on this page.
Big loan? Skip the ranking. Send us the shape.
For loans above $1M the published rate is a starting point, not the answer. Custody structure, term, jurisdiction, and lender relationship all move the number. Send us a short intake and we'll email you a shortlist of 2–3 desks that fit — at no cost to you.
- +A short intake form covering size, term, custody, jurisdiction.
- +A shortlist of 2–3 lenders fit for your shape, emailed within ~2 business days.
- +Warm intro to each lender's private-client desk on request.
- +Help reading term sheets when they come back — reply to the email.
The 8 factors. Public weights.
Every score is the weighted sum of the same eight factors, applied uniformly to every lender.
Independent research.
No commercial relationships.
Pledge has no affiliate or referral relationships today. The methodology determines rank — full stop.
About → How Pledge works ↗Zero lenders pay for position. Ever.
Custody, rehypothecation, regulation, reserves, liquidation, disclosure, track record, agreement.
Plain-English. No hidden formulas. v3.2 published.
No affiliate, referral, or sponsorship relationships in place.