Alkemi Earn integration brings DeFi lending to 1.5M Ledger users

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The Alkemi Earn app has been added to the hardware wallet Ledger's Discover area, making decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing service accessible to Ledger's 1.5 million active customers.

According to a Tuesday announcement, users of Ledger Live can now earn yield on their assets with the Alkemi Earn integration. The goal of the Ledger project is to provide consumers with a method of buying and utilizing digital assets without giving them up to third-party platforms or systems.

"With Alkemi, Ledger users will have more ways to grow their assets while enjoying all the benefits of crypto without centralized custodians," said JF Rochet, the vice president of international development for Ledger.

In February 2021, Ledger launched DeFi efforts with the open-source protocol WalletConnect, allowing users to access decentralized applications (DApps), such as Uniswap, 1inch and Curve.

Alkemi Earn is a lending protocol that enables institutions and retail borrowers to co-exist side by side. Alkemi allows institutions to put money into DeFi in a safe counterparty setting by providing both a Bank-Grade Verified pool and a permissionless Open pool. Since launching, the platform has amassed over $50 million in gross deposits. The integration with Ledger Live will likely attract even more users to the protocol.

Alkemi Network's co-founder, Brian Mahoney, emphasized that this process is more secure than other competitors' products and solutions for noncustodial yield farming, stating that:

“'Not your keys, not your coins,' as the saying goes. With this native integration into Ledger Live, Alkemi Earn unlocks a protocol-powered cash management experience for Ledger’s community. This is what bridging CeFi to DeFi is all about.”

Alkemi Earn's ecosystem of products and services includes Ether (ETH), Dai (DAI), USD Coin (USDC) and wBTC as supported on-chain assets. Users can also earn ALK tokens by loaning and borrowing.

Staking is the process of delegating crypto to a staking validator to help secure a blockchain. It derives its name from the word "stake," which refers to earning crypto profits and an associated passive revenue through a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, as opposed to the Bitcoin (BTC) network's mining-based proof-of-work.