Lantern Finance

Lantern Finance, Inc. is a US financial services and technology company offering crypto-backed loans to retail crypto holders. Customers pledge digital assets as collateral and receive US dollars deposited directly into their bank accounts, allowing them to access liquidity without selling and thereby deferring a taxable disposal while retaining market exposure. The product requires no credit check, supports 13 collateral assets (including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, LTC, DOGE, XLM, ADA, HBAR, BCH, LINK, SUI and XDC), and is marketed with borrowing of up to 50% of portfolio value, rates starting at 8% APR for select assets, and a 72-hour grace period before liquidation. Illustrative terms shown on the site include a 40% maximum LTV, 11% APR and a 12-month term.

Collateral is held by BitGo, a US-based qualified custodian, in offline cold storage insured up to $250 million. Lantern states that it does not lend out borrower collateral, does not engage in yield farming or proprietary trading, and holds or natively stakes assets instead. The company is registered with FinCEN as a Money Services Business and operates KYC and AML programs. Support is delivered by phone and email alongside the online application.

The founders position the company explicitly against the failed lending platforms of 2022 — BlockFi, Celsius, Genesis, Voyager, Vauld and FTX — citing misuse of collateral and speculative risk-taking at those firms as the impetus for Lantern's custody and risk policies.

Founding story

Co-founders Prince Jindal (previously at Blackstone) and Jung Won Kim (previously at Capital One) were users of BlockFi, Celsius and Genesis and lost money when those platforms collapsed. They describe that experience as the origin of Lantern, which they built to combine crypto lending with the risk discipline of traditional finance and to be "the platform we wish existed during the chaos of 2022."

Business model

Lantern originates US dollar loans collateralized by customers' cryptocurrency holdings. Borrowers transfer crypto to BitGo custody, and loan proceeds are deposited directly into the borrower's bank account. The company states it does not rehypothecate or lend out collateral, which is instead held in cold storage or staked natively, so revenue derives from lending economics such as interest charged on outstanding loans rather than from deploying customer assets.

Interest and fees on crypto-collateralized dollar loans; the site advertises rates starting at 8% APR for select assets and states there are no hidden fees.

Traction

The website cites a Trustpilot rating of 4.9 across 176 reviews, 13 supported collateral assets and up to $250 million of insurance on custodied assets. At the time of the pre-seed announcement in early 2025 the company said it had already served crypto investors over the preceding year and described the round as oversubscribed.

Latest developments

Company blog posts dated September 2026 describe a product feature called Buy Boost and discuss the company's approach to minimizing collection of sensitive customer data. A founders' letter published in May 2026 restates the company's custody and risk-management commitments.