Crypto Lender Cred Is Offering Investors 10% Interest With Spencer Dinwiddie Partnership

Spencer Dinwiddie, the Brooklyn Nets guard who launched his own tokenization platform, has launched an interest-bearing stablecoin service in partnership with crypto lending firm Cred. 

The new service launched Friday on Dinwiddie’s personal website. There, visitors can “pledge” TrueUSD and UPUSD stablecoins as well as bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC) and ether (ETH), earning up to 10 percent interest over the course of the term, according to Cred CEO Dan Schatt.

The service premieres at a somewhat awkward moment for Dinwiddie and Cred, both of whom deal in businesses acutely impacted by the global coronavirus pandemic. A starter for the Nets, Dinwiddie and his season were upended two weeks ago by the indefinite suspension of NBA play. Four of his teammates have since tested positive for COVID-19. 

Cred, for its part, is a banking and financial services alternative at a time when global financial markets are in turmoil. Jobless claims for last week – a lagging economic indicator, but a telling one – have spiked more than at any point in over a decade, data from the Labor Department shows. The economic carnage is expected to worsen as the U.S. economy slams on its brakes. 

Schatt said that the state of the world right now makes the Cred-Dinwiddie partnership all the more important. It’s offering users a high potential return on a volatility-free crypto asset: stablecoins backed one-to-one with dollar reserves. 

“In an environment like this I think everyone is looking for that extra assurance. It just highlights the value of stablecoins,” Schatt said.

It's also an opportunity to bring more people into the crypto fold, he said. Dinwiddie is the NBA’s most outspoken cryptocurrency and DeFi enthusiast, a title earned over months of fighting to tokenize his three-year, $35 million contract. 

“Spencer is a fantastic spokesperson for what's happening with blockchain and bitcoin – he’s really a thought leader in the sports industry,” Schatt said.

Dinwiddie will donate 26 percent of his revenue share to his charity, the Dinwiddie Family Foundation, according to Schatt.  A Cred spokesperson declined to state what percentage of the overall revenue that slice represents. The firm's website says it offers "up to 10 percent interest" through its Earn offering.