AltaFin combines cryptocurrencies and real-world assets – TechBuzz News

Until the last two years, cryptocurrency has struggled to find a place in “normal” everyday business. When Bitcoin launched in 2009, a marginally small number of people saw it as the next big thing. In 2013, TechBuzz co-founder and writer Austin Craig he traveled the world on his honeymoon using only bitcoin, and struggled to find people who knew what bitcoin was, let alone people who took it seriously. But now, new and creative ways to use and implement cryptocurrencies emerge every day. The world is catching up and cryptocurrencies have found a way to expand and become relative in many industries.

It’s a really exciting time for cryptocurrencies,” says Jeremy Crane, CEO and co-founder of AltaFin. “The entire gaming industry is taking off and NFTs are creating a new set of business opportunities. At this point, in the space of cryptocurrencies, we felt it was the perfect time to bring those assets that exist in our current financial world, but not into the cryptocurrency world, and figure out how to combine them.”

Crane met Rob Fuller when Fuller hired Crane’s design firm to create an app and website for another business app called HouseFolios. Fast forward a few years after the project, Crane proposed that Fuller join him to combine their knowledge, Crane with cryptocurrencies and Fuller with real estate, and created AltaFin, a cryptocurrency-enabled fintech.

AltaFin launched in August 2020 in Lehi, Utah.

In February 2022 AltaFin launched another DeFI product, a lending protocol called Earn. Essentially, Earn allows cryptocurrency holders to lend their cryptocurrencies to AltaFin and AltaFin will give them a 12% return in return. While lending protocols are normal in the cryptocurrency industry, Altafin is different because it uses real estate as a real-world asset to boost returns by bringing external capital into cryptocurrencies.

Earn is a long-term yield product, AltaFin pays 12.55% APR over a 36-month period. Crane points out that Circle, one of the largest and most stable cryptocurrency companies, can only offer a 6% APR over an 18-month period.

“It’s very competitive and exciting,” Crane says. “Ultimately, we are making this yield available to a broader community. Traditionally, if you want to have access to real estate, you need to be a high net worth individual or access a platform like Fundrise, and you may still need to be accredited to have access to such tools. Our product is great because you can have fifty dollars or fifty thousand, it doesn’t matter, you always have access to the return.”

Earn natively uses Ethereum or Polygon, with other chains currently in the works. To invest with Earn, users exchange their crypto assets for the AFN token and choose their preferred contracts. The longest term is 36 months with a 12.55% APR, as previously mentioned, and the shortest term is one month with a 6.55% APR. All principles are returned in USDC at the end of the contract term.

AltaFin makes investing in both cryptocurrencies and real estate manageable for novice investors. It also constitutes a hedge for high def investors who wish to invest a percentage of their portfolio in a stabilized return.



The company is currently started by three founders, Crane, Fuller (CIO), and Ammon Warner (CTO). They have hired five new engineers in the last six months, all BYU students as Warner is also a BYU student. When asked about talent acquisition, Crane explained, “new talent wants to do everything in the cryptocurrency world.” Additionally, he added that more experienced engineering talent faces a steep learning curve moving from SaaS engineering to cryptocurrency engineering.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs, introduced the concept of treasury, a concept adopted by AltaFin. All assets are brought together in a variable fund and seen as a whole and not as specific assets.

“The crypto community brings with it the concept of transparency,” Crane says. “They want to know who the owners of the projects are. They want to know where their cryptocurrency is going. Instead of focusing on specific assets, we will be very transparent about the financials, basically the balance sheet. So, yes, we have real estate under contract, and it’s in our assets, but more importantly we’re continuing to move forward with our mission and using it to increase the yield that we’ll pay for our products.

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