Most Regulated Crypto Lenders (2026): The Crypto Lender Safety Index

CryptoLendingHub is operated by Bill Rice Strategy Group (BRSG), which has a paid client relationship with Figure. Figure is included on the same terms as every other lender and ranked by the same published criteria — see our [methodology](/methodology). This relationship does not change how any lender scores; the ranking is reproducible from the criteria alone.

Which crypto lenders are actually regulated? Only a subset of the platforms that let you borrow against crypto are licensed lenders in the United States — that is, registered with the NMLS and supervised under state lending law. In this comparison, three of them (Figure, Arch, and Unchained) clear that bar and also keep collateral in segregated or collaborative custody without rehypothecation. The rest fall into two different regulatory categories that borrowers routinely confuse with licensing: offshore-registered CeFi platforms, and non-custodial DeFi protocols that hold no lending license by design. "Regulated" is a specific, checkable claim — not a vibe — so this piece defines it and then measures the market against it.

This is educational content, not investment or legal advice. I've spent 25+ years in traditional lending, and I'm applying that lens to crypto — but you can lose money on any of these platforms, regulated or not. A license reduces certain risks; it does not eliminate them. Do your own research.

What "regulated" actually means for a crypto loan

In traditional lending, "regulated" has a precise meaning: a licensed entity, supervised by a regulator, bound by consumer-protection rules. Crypto borrowing borrowed the word without always borrowing the substance. When I evaluate how regulated a crypto-backed loan really is, I look at six things you can verify yourself:

• US lending license / supervised status — Is there an NMLS-registered lender with state lending licenses behind the loan, or is the credit extended by an unlicensed platform or a smart contract? You can check a registration number on NMLS Consumer Access.
• Jurisdiction and legal recourse — Is the lender a US-domiciled, regulated entity, or an offshore company whose rules and courts you'd have to navigate if something went wrong?
• Custody model — Who holds your collateral, and can they lend it back out? A qualified custodian with no rehypothecation (or a non-custodial smart contract that never holds it at all) is a fundamentally different risk than commingled collateral a platform can re-lend.
• Consumer disclosures and liquidation transparency — Are the loan terms and the liquidation mechanics disclosed the way a supervised lender must disclose them?
• Rate transparency — Is the rate fixed and disclosed, transparently variable (like an on-chain utilization curve), or discretionary?
• Track record through 2022 — When the crypto credit crisis hit, did the platform freeze withdrawals or enter bankruptcy — or keep operating?

I turned those six criteria into a single 0–5 score and gave it a name: the Crypto Lender Safety Index. Licensing and custody carry equal, heaviest weight as the two load-bearing factors. The full rubric — every criterion, every point threshold — is published on our methodology page, so the Index is reproducible by design: apply the same criteria to the same facts and you get the same score. This is the 2026.1 edition, with licensing and registration facts current as of July 2026; when a lender's status materially changes, the score changes with it, and the edition stamp moves.

This comparison is about regulation specifically. If you're weighing lenders on rates and features instead, see our best crypto lending platforms comparison, and to check availability where you live, our guide to US crypto lending platforms by state.

The comparison

Ordered by Safety Index score. Figure, Arch, and Unchained share the top tier — all three are licensed US lenders with clean custody. The scores are derived from primary sources (each lender's licensing pages, NMLS registrations, SEC filings, and state regulator records); licensing figures are attributed facts as of July 2026, not marketing claims.

A few honest caveats built into that table. NMLS registration numbers come from each lender's own disclosures; confirm current "active" status yourself on NMLS Consumer Access before you rely on it. Rate structures are shown, not rate numbers — advertised APRs move, and I'd rather you pull a current figure from the lender than trust a snapshot. And a low score is a statement about regulation, not about safety or quality: a non-custodial DeFi protocol scores low here because it holds no license and offers no recourse entity — which is exactly how it's designed to work.

Licensed lender vs. offshore CeFi vs. DeFi protocol

The single most useful thing you can do before borrowing against crypto is figure out which of three categories you're actually dealing with, because they carry completely different regulatory profiles.

Licensed US lenders (Figure, Arch, Unchained in this set) are NMLS-registered and hold state lending licenses. There is a supervised legal entity on the other side of your loan, bound by state consumer-lending rules, and — in each of these three cases — a custody arrangement that keeps your collateral segregated or under collaborative control rather than re-lending it. This is the closest thing crypto borrowing has to a traditional, supervised loan.

Offshore-registered CeFi platforms (Ledn, Nexo here) are centralized companies that take custody of your collateral, but their registrations sit outside the US lending framework — a Cayman VASP registration, for example, is a real registration, but it is not a US lending license and does not give you US consumer-lending protections. Some of these platforms are transparent operators with proof-of-reserves; the point is simply that "registered somewhere" and "licensed US lender" are not the same claim.

DeFi protocols (Aave, Compound; and, structurally, Coinbase's crypto loan, where the lender is the Morpho protocol) are non-custodial software. No company holds your collateral — a smart contract does, and it can never rehypothecate what it doesn't control. But there is also no license, no lender to be accountable to a regulator, and no consumer-disclosure regime. The trade is transparency-by-code in exchange for no legal recourse. That's not a flaw to hide; it's a different risk model, and it's why these score low on regulation specifically.

Why regulation became the first question after 2022

For years, "is this lender regulated?" was a footnote. Then 2022 happened. Several large centralized crypto lenders — Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi among them — filed for bankruptcy, and depositors who thought they were making a simple loan discovered their collateral had been re-lent, commingled, and lost. Those were bankruptcy filings of record, not opinions.

What that year exposed wasn't that crypto lending is uniquely doomed — it's that the structure of a given loan determines what happens to your money under stress. The platforms that re-lent customer collateral to chase yield were the ones that failed. The ones that segregated collateral, held it with a qualified custodian, or never took custody at all generally kept operating. That's precisely why this comparison weights custody as heavily as licensing: in 2022, custody integrity was the difference between an inconvenient market and a total loss.

What is the Crypto Lender Safety Index?

The Crypto Lender Safety Index is CryptoLendingHub's 0–5 score for how regulated and structurally safe a crypto-backed loan is. It combines six checkable criteria — US lending license, jurisdiction and legal recourse, custody model, consumer disclosures, rate transparency, and 2022 track record — with licensing and custody weighted most heavily. Every input is a verifiable fact (a license number, a custody term, a bankruptcy record), not an opinion, so the Index is reproducible: anyone applying the published criteria to the same facts reaches the same score. In the 2026.1 edition, three licensed US lenders — Figure, Arch, and Unchained — score 5.0; offshore CeFi platforms and DeFi protocols score in the low-2s because they hold no US lending license. A high score reflects regulatory structure and custody integrity, not investment safety — you can still lose money on any platform.

Is Figure a licensed lender?

Yes. Figure's crypto-backed loan is offered by two registered entities, split by geography: Figure Lending LLC (NMLS 1717824) to US borrowers outside New York, and Figure Markets Credit LLC (NMLS 2559612) to New York and international borrowers. Both entities and the crypto-backed loan business are described in Figure Technology Solutions' SEC-filed prospectus. Confirm current license status on NMLS Consumer Access as you would for any lender.

Are crypto-backed loans regulated?

It depends entirely on who is extending the loan. A crypto-backed loan from an NMLS-licensed US lender is a supervised, state-regulated loan. The identical-looking product from an offshore CeFi platform is regulated under that platform's home jurisdiction, not US lending law. And a loan from a DeFi protocol isn't "regulated" in the lender sense at all — there's no licensed lender, only a smart contract. Same collateral, same use case, three different regulatory realities.

What is the safest crypto lender?

There's no single "safest" — safety depends on which risks you're most trying to avoid, and no crypto loan is risk-free. If your priority is a supervised lender with US consumer protections and collateral that won't be re-lent, the licensed US lenders in the top tier here are built for that. If your priority is never handing custody to anyone, a non-custodial DeFi protocol addresses that specific risk while adding others (smart-contract risk, no recourse). The Crypto Lender Safety Index on this page is meant to help you match the lender's regulatory profile to your own risk priorities, not to crown a universal winner.

What is the difference between a licensed lender and a DeFi protocol?

A licensed lender is a supervised legal entity: registered with the NMLS, holding state lending licenses, bound by consumer-disclosure rules, and accountable to a regulator. A DeFi protocol is non-custodial software governed by token holders — no legal entity extends the loan, no license exists, and no regulator supervises it. The licensed lender offers recourse and disclosure; the DeFi protocol offers transparency-by-code and self-custody. Neither is strictly "better" — they're different answers to who you're willing to trust.

Can you borrow against crypto without selling?

Yes — that's the entire point of a crypto-backed loan. You pledge Bitcoin or Ether as collateral and borrow dollars (or a stablecoin) against it, so you keep your position and any future upside while accessing liquidity, rather than selling and triggering a taxable event. The variable that matters most is the one this whole piece is about: who you borrow from, and how regulated they are. If you're weighing whether borrowing actually beats selling for your situation, see should you sell or borrow against your crypto? and the borrow vs. sell calculator; for how the loan structures compare, crypto loan vs SBLOC vs HELOC vs margin.

Sources

All accessed July 16, 2026. Licensing and registration facts are drawn from primary sources; status should be re-confirmed before relying on it.

• Figure — figure.com/licenses, figuremarkets.com crypto-backed loan, and Figure Technology Solutions SEC Form 424B4 (sec.gov)
• Arch (ChainFi, Inc.) — archlending.com/crypto-loans, archlending.com/security
• Unchained — unchained.com/legal-regulatory, unchained.com/loans
• Coinbase crypto loan / Morpho — Coinbase onchain-integration terms, help.coinbase.com loan overview
• Nexo — SEC press release 2023-11, SEC Order 33-11149, nexo.com/en-us/borrow
• Ledn — ledn.io terms of service, ledn.io/borrowing, "Is Ledn regulated?"
• SALT — CA DFPI Consent Order (Dec 2024), DFPI suspension release (Nov 2022)
• Aave — aave.com/docs, Aave governance Q4-2022 risk-off measures
• Compound — docs.compound.finance, Compound governance docs