What it costs
Fees
Four fees, all of them visible. The one we do not charge matters more than the four we do.
| Fee | Paid by | Amount | When | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origination | Borrower | 5–6% of principal | Once, at drawdown | Shown as a line item in every loan's use of funds, so lenders can see exactly what the platform took from the money they lent. |
| Servicing | Lender | 0.75% per annum | Deducted from each instalment | Taken before the coupon reaches you. The rate quoted on a listing is already net of it: there is no second number. |
| Recovery | Lender | 12% of amounts recovered | Only on a workout that recovers something | Charged on money that actually comes back through arbitration. If a case recovers nothing, the platform is paid nothing for it. |
| Fund management | Fund subscriber | 1.25% per annum | On committed capital | Applies only to the Builders Fund. No performance fee, no entry or exit fee. |
The fee we do not charge
BitBacker takes nothing on the spread. If a borrower is priced at 14.50%, lenders on that loan receive 14.50% less the 0.75% servicing fee: not 14.50% less an undisclosed margin the platform keeps.
That is the fee most lending platforms actually live on and the one nobody can see, because it is invisible by construction: the borrower is told one number, the lender is told another, and the difference never appears on either page. Every listing here shows the borrower’s rate, and the origination fee appears as a percentage line in the use of funds, so the arithmetic is checkable from the listing itself.
Worked example
Take the Adventure SV loan: 320 BSV at 11.75% over twenty-four months, with a 6% origination fee. It was drawn in BSV, and its coupon was fixed at 41.05 USD per BSV on the day it drew down.
- The borrower draws 320 BSV and pays 19.2 BSV to BitBacker at drawdown. That is the 6% line in the use of funds, and it is charged on the leg that was actually drawn.
- The borrower repays 320 BSV of principal, in BSV, plus roughly $1,736 of interest over the term, in MNEE. The interest was fixed in dollars at drawdown, so it is the same figure whatever the price does afterwards.
- Lenders receive that interest less the 0.75% annual servicing fee, about $197 over two years, so roughly $1,539 in MNEE between them.
- BitBacker earns 19.2 BSV at drawdown plus about $197 over the term. Nothing else, unless the loan goes to arbitration and money is actually recovered.
The fee is charged on each leg in that leg’s own unit, which is why one line is in coins and the next in dollars. A platform that quoted both in one currency would be picking a rate to convert at, and picking that rate is how a fee schedule stops being checkable.
You can check that against the listing and against the schedule on its repayment tab.
What happens to the fee if a loan fails
The origination fee is not refunded. It is charged for the credit work, the memo and the listing, and that work happened. The servicing fee stops when the payments stop: a defaulted loan pays no servicing fee, because there is nothing to service.
The recovery fee is the one that aligns properly: 12% of what actually comes back and nothing otherwise, so the platform is paid for a workout that works rather than for running a process.