How and Where to Buy SALT (SALT) – Detailed Guide

What is SALT?

What Is SALT Lending (SALT)?

SALT Lending is a blockchain-based lending platform that offers users cryptocurrency-backed loans. Users deposit any combination of accepted tokens — such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Doge (DOGE), DASH (DASH) or SALT (SALT) — as collateral to receive a loan in the form of a fiat currency or stablecoin.

SALT Lending has a native token, called SALT, that can be spent to reduce the interest rate on a loan and can be used as a secondary form of loan collateral. Currently, SALT is redeemable at a $7.50 value for interest reductions on loans, a policy and valuation which are subject to change.

The company was launched in 2016 and is operated by Salt Blockchain Inc., a for profit entity, Salt Lending LLC: Salt Master Fund II, LLC – NMLS 1711910.

Who Are the Founders of SALT?

SALT was founded in 2016 in Denver, Colorado by a group of Bitcoin enthusiasts and finance professionals, who aimed to bring to the market a product that enabled its users the ability to leverage their cryptocurrency to secure a cash loan while retaining ownership. SALT introduced asset backed lending to the cryptocurrency marketplace with the original blockchain-backed loan, providing a new level of versatility to digital asset holders seeking liquidity.

Fast-forward to today and you discover a regulated and licensed company that builds not only crypto-backed lending technology but also scalable, insured institutional-grade crypto custody and blockchain monitoring products. SALT now has over a 40 person team of core employees, technical developers and advisors with experience in various spheres.

What Makes SALT Unique?

According to its whitepaper, SALT was the first provider of cryptocurrency-backed loans creating the niche lending market. The company is regulated and holds numerous lending, collection and loan servicing licenses.

SALT enables multi-collateral loans with fixed rates, flexible terms and several loan to value (LTV) ratio options. Payouts are available in both cash and stablecoin. Prepayment penalties and bank-style origination fees are waived. The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio ranges from 30% to 70%. The interest rates vary based on the selected loan term and LTV. The platform also functions as an insured cold storage wallet, and hosts its own SALT token which users can leverage to decrease loan interest rates among other things. The company lends in the United States and internationally, to individuals and institutional entities such as mining businesses and hedge funds. The company has live customer service, client support and best-in-class compliance programs to meet the needs of its users.

The SALT Platform was designed with the volatility of cryptocurrency and wealth preservation in mind. In the event of a margin call, assets are automatically converted to a stablecoin in lieu of liquidation, a unique feature in the lending space.

Here's how it works:

  • When a loan reaches a forced liquidation LTV, instead of immediately selling collateral assets to restore the health of the loan, the SALT Platform converts some portion of the collateral assets to a stablecoin thus preserving collateral value.
  • Once the health of the loan has been restored, the borrower can ask to convert the loan collateral back to the original cryptocurrency assets, such as BTC, ETH, LTC, etc…
  • This gives users the opportunity to convert assets as the market is coming back up, creating the potential for users to not only preserve wealth, but grow it.

The SALT Platform has a loan health notification system consisting of email, phone, text and app alerts, available in both iOS and Android. Notwithstanding a general policy of giving borrowers notice of a margin deficiency. The system may liquidate or convert pledged assets without notice to borrowers to ensure that minimum maintenance requirements of the loan are satisfied. The liquidation or conversion of pledged assets could result in adverse tax consequences. SALT advises borrowers to consult their tax advisor in order to fully understand the implications associated with pledging digital assets as loan collateral.

How Many SALT (SALT) Coins Are There in Circulation?

SALT has a fixed supply of 120,000,000 tokens.

The native token of the SALT Lending platform is SALT. It performs a number of user-related functions and is freely tradable outside the platform.

SALT had an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. The presale and crowdsale took approximately 67% of the token supply, with the remainder currently held in treasury by SALT Blockchain Inc.

In September 2020, SALT paid a $250,000 fine and reached a settlement with the SEC related an investigation of its ICO. As a result, SALT Blockchain Inc. agreed to publicly register the SALT token as a class of security under Section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and to inform ICO purchasers of their right to submit a claim to recover the consideration paid, amongst other settlement terms.

How Is the SALT Network Secured?

The Salt Platform holds assets within insured cold storage and is responsible for the security of its networks and user funds. Within the Salt Platform, keys are generated offline, stored offline, and transactions are signed offline, which the company reports drastically reduce cyber security threats as keys are never exposed to a network-connected device. The multi-signature security process ensures that no single party can move user funds. Key encryption and layers of distribution secure user funds against both internal and external threats. The Salt Platform utilizes a custody framework for safekeeping cryptoassets with people, processes, and technology.

Its native token, SALT, is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning that any on-chain SALT transactions are validated and secured by the Ethereum mainnet. Miners compete among each other to add new blocks to the blockchain, and a majority of all nodes in the network must validate a record for it to be posted.

Related Pages:

Learn about NEXO, another crypto-collateralized lending platform.

Learn about CEL, another crypto-collateralized lending platform.

Learn about Compound, another popular crypto lending platform.

Curious about oracles? Read an in-depth guide on Alexandria, CoinMarketCap's online educational resource.

Stay up to date on the latest in decentralized finance and crypto lending with the CoinMarketCap Blog.

SALT was first tradable on 29th Sep, 2017. It has a total supply of 120,000,000. As of right now SALT has a market capitalization of USD $14,030,859.02. The current price of SALT is $0.117 and is ranked 843 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 45.49 percent at the time of writing.

SALT has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy SALT.

Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange

You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, in this case, Bitcoin (BTC). In this article we will walk you through in details two of the most commonly-used fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Uphold.com and Coinbase. Both exchanges have their own fee policies and other features that we will go through in detail. It is recommended that you try both of them and figure out the one that suits you best.

uphold

Suitable for US traders

Select Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange for details:

SALT

Being one of the most popular and convenient fiat-to-crypto exchanges, UpHold has the following advantages:

  • Easy to buy and trade among multiple assets, more than 50 and still adding
  • Currently more than 7M users worldwide
  • You can apply for UpHold Debit card where you can spend the crypto assets on your account like a normal debit card! (US only but will be in the UK later)
  • Easy to use mobile app where you can withdraw fund to a bank or any other altcoin exchanges easily
  • No hidden fees and any other account fees
  • There are limited buy/sell orders for more advanced users
  • You can easily set up recurring deposits for Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) if you intend to hold cryptos long term
  • USDT, which is one of the most popular USD-backed stablecoins (basically a crypto that is backed by real fiat money so they are less volatile and can be treated almost as the fiat money it's pegged with) is available, this is more convenient if the altcoin you intend to buy has only USDT trading pairs on the altcoin exchange so you don't have to go through another currency conversion while you buy the altcoin.
Show Details Steps ▾
SALT

Type your email and click 'Next'. Make sure you provide your real name as UpHold will need it for account and identity verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn't vulnerable to hackers.

SALT

You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.

SALT

Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, UpHold is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish.

Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money

SALT

Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You may be charged higher fees depending on your credit card company and the volatile prices when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees.

SALT

Now you are all set, on the 'Transact' screen under the 'From' field, select your fiat currency, and then on the 'To' field choose Bitcoin, click preview to review your transaction and the click confirm if everything looks good... and congrats! You've just made your first crypto purchase.

Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange

SALT

But we are not done yet, since SALT is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that SALT can be traded, here we will use Gate.io as our exchange. Gate.io is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Gate.io is an American cryptocurrency exchange that launched 2017. As the exchange is American, US-investors can of course trade here and we recommend US traders to sign up on this exchange. The exchange is available both in English and Chinese (the latter being very helpful for Chinese investors). Gate.io’s main selling factor is their wide selection of trading pairs. You can find most of the new altcoins here. Gate.io also demonstrates an impressive trading volume. It is almost every day one of the top 20 exchanges with the highest trading volume. The trading volume amounts to approx. USD 100 million on a daily basis. The top 10 trading pairs on Gate.io in terms of trading volume usually have USDT (Tether) as one part of the pair. So, to summarize the foregoing, Gate.io’s vast number of trading pairs and its extraordinary liquidity are both very impressive aspects of this exchange.

SALT

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

SALT

Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.

SALT

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Gate.io and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".

On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Gate.io!

SALT

Now go back to Gate.io and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Gate.io once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase SALT!

Step 5: Trade SALT

SALT

Go back to Gate.io, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

SALT

In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "SALT", you should see SALT/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of SALT/BTC in the middle of the page.

Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy SALT", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy SALT". Voila! You have finally bought SALT!

Last Step: Store SALT securely in hardware wallets

Ledger Nano S

Ledger Nano S

  • Easy to set up and friendly interface
  • Can be used on desktops and laptops
  • Lightweight and Portable
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price
Ledger Nano X

Ledger Nano X

  • More powerful secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
  • Can be used on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth integration
  • Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
  • Larger screen
  • More storage space than Ledger Nano S
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price

If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your SALT for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online("Hot Wallets" as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of "Cold Wallets", where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply "go online") when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it's basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.

Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I buy SALT with cash?

There is no direct way to buy SALT with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase BTC, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your BTC to respective AltCoin exchanges.

LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can't find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.

Are there any quick ways to buy SALT in Europe?

Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Uphold.

Are there any alternative platforms to buy SALT or Bitcoin with credit cards?

Yes. is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.

Read more on SALT's fundamentals and current price here.

Latest News for SALT

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