Trump’s Crypto Endorsement Ignites Resurgence of Crypto Microloans in 2025

Crypto microloans—once written off as a niche experiment—are roaring back to life. And this time, they’ve got political firepower behind them.

Former President Trump’s vocal support for digital assets has sent shockwaves through decentralized finance (DeFi), with lenders rushing to capitalize on renewed interest. Platforms that survived the 2022-23 crypto winter are now reporting triple-digit growth in small-ticket loans collateralized by Bitcoin and altcoins.

Borrowers are flocking to these services for everything from emergency medical bills to—irony alert—leveraged crypto trading. No credit checks, no paperwork—just overcollateralized positions that’d make a traditional banker faint.

The trend exposes a delicious contradiction: While politicians champion crypto as 'financial freedom,' the real action is in recreating the very debt systems blockchain was supposed to dismantle. Some things never change—not even in Web3.

Crypto credit startups embrace programmable trust and AI

Divine isn’t alone. 3Jane, a crypto credit startup backed by Paradigm (an early FTX investor), recently raised $5.2 million in seed funding. It offers unsecured USDC credit lines via ethereum smart contracts, though it requires “verifiable proofs” of financial standing — such as bank statements or crypto holdings — rather than collateral.

The firm sells defaulted loans to US debt collectors and is working on AI-powered agents that obey debt covenants automatically, potentially allowing lower interest rates.

Meanwhile, Wildcat, another rising protocol, caters to market makers and crypto trading firms by offering customized, undercollateralized credit facilities. Over $170 million has already been lent through its Ethereum-based platform. Like competitors Clearpool and TrueFi, Wildcat allows borrowers to define terms like maturity and loan caps, while lenders self-organize in case of default.

“We’re seeing a shift toward programmable trust,” said Evgeny Gaevoy, Wildcat adviser and Wintermute CEO. “In the absence of collateral, reputation and transparency become everything.”

Wall Street, AI, and biometrics fuel high-stakes reboot of crypto lending

The crypto lending revival comes as Bitcoin prices hit new highs and traditional finance warms to digital assets. Cantor Fitzgerald recently launched a $2 billion “Bitcoin Financing Business”, and JPMorgan is reportedly exploring crypto-backed loans.

Even Coinbase is experimenting with AI agents embedded with crypto wallets, developed in collaboration with Altman’s OpenAI, that could one day autonomously manage loans and repayments.

Still, memories of the 2022 crypto lending crash — marked by the collapses of Celsius and Genesis — loom large. Celsius’s CEO, Alex Mashinsky, is serving 12 years for fraud, while Genesis agreed to a $2 billion settlement in a lawsuit over defrauding 230,000 investors.

Despite those risks, startups like Divine are betting that biometrics, blockchain, and AI can reboot crypto credit models for a new era where loans aren’t backed by assets, but by identity, algorithmic enforcement, and yield-seeking investors.

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