‘Before Bitcoin, my most successful investment was shorting the Bolivar’ — Ledn co-founder

Before discovering Bitcoin (BTC), Ledn co-founder Mauricio di Bartolomeo found success shorting the Venezuelan Bolivar as it rapidly lost value against the stronger US dollar. Now, with the US dollar depreciating against Bitcoin, borrowing against Bitcoin instead of selling it has become a more viable strategy.

“Prior to Bitcoin, my most successful investment was shorting the Bolivar with dollars,” di Bartolomeo told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview at the Consensus conference in Toronto, Canada. 

“I was borrowing Bolivars and buying dollars with them, holding the hard dollars and having a borrow [position] on the weaker currency,” he said.

The arrival of Bitcoin-backed loans means investors can now effectively implement the same strategy by using a harder currency as collateral. 

Ledn co-founder Mauricio di Bartolomeo, right, and Cointelegraph’s Sam Bourgi at Consensus. Source: Cointelegraph

This was part of the motivation behind launching Ledn, a Cayman Islands-based company that gives Bitcoin holders the ability to access dollar liquidity without having to sell their BTC. 

By borrowing against Bitcoin, “you’re basically doing the same thing, but you are in effect holding the hard money, which is Bitcoin, and taking a borrow [position] on dollars, which is a weaker currency,” said di Bartolomeo, adding:

“This creates a bit of a virtuous cycle that we see happen time and again with real estate, with borrowing against your stock, borrowing against your gold, and so Bitcoin is no different.”

Related: Bitcoin miners should pay costs in depreciating currency — Ledn exec

Crypto lending market on the rise

Ledn operates in a much broader crypto lending industry that has grown over the past five years due to the rapid appreciation of Bitcoin, the arrival of institutional investors and the growing utility of stablecoins.

By the fourth quarter of 2024, the crypto lending market was valued at $30.2 billion, a more than threefold increase compared to two years earlier, according to Galaxy Research. However, the size of the overall industry remains below the 2021 peak. 

The researchers attributed the recent rise to decentralized finance applications, which allow users to borrow against assets onchain. This trend was further corroborated by a recent Cointelegraph report, which documented the growing monetary value secured by DeFi lending protocols. 

The crypto lending market has rebounded sharply from its 2022 lows but remains well below the peak from 2021. Source: Galaxy Research

Ledn was ranked among the top three centralized finance (CeFi) lenders, with a loan book valued at $9.9 billion at the end of 2024. Together, the top three CeFi lenders — Ledn, Tether and Galaxy — account for 89% of the total market, the Galaxy report showed.

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