Crypto staking and yield in Mexico: who pays you, and what you risk

If you moved to Mexico with some crypto, you've probably noticed that the yield button follows you. Bitso, Binance, Bybit, OKX and Kraken all offer some version of "earn X% a year on idle coins." It looks like a savings account. It isn't. Behind that percentage sits one of three very different things: rewards a blockchain pays for helping secure it, interest other people pay to borrow your coins, or a mix of strategies the platform doesn't spell out. Each carries different risks, and in Mexico none of them carries bank-style protection.

This guide covers where the yield comes from, what the platforms used in Mexico offer, what the collapses of Celsius, BlockFi and FTX taught, how the rules look for residents and for Americans abroad, and a checklist before you switch anything on. We don't publish rates because they change weekly. When you see a percentage, the source is the app.

Staking, lending and "Earn" are sold the same way

Staking. Proof-of-stakeA system where the network picks who validates transactions based on how many coins they lock up as collateral, instead of using mining. blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Cardano and Polkadot need participants to lock coins as collateral to validate blocks. Those participants run a validatorA computer that proposes and confirms blocks on a proof-of-stake network. If it misbehaves or goes offline, it loses part of what it locked., and the network pays them in newly issued coins plus a share of fees. When you stake, your yield comes from there: from the protocol, not from a borrower.

Lending. Bitcoin has no staking; it runs on mining. When a platform pays you interest on bitcoin or on stablecoinsTokens designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged one-to-one to the US dollar, like USDT or USDC., the money usually comes from lending your coins to traders, funds or institutions, or from parking them in short-term instruments. The risk there is the borrower not paying back.

"Earn" products. This is the marketing umbrella Binance, Bybit, OKX and others use for everything: staking, lending, flexible savings, fixed terms and structured products. The label tells you nothing about who pays you. Open each product's description.

What the yield actually is

Think of staking rewards as the network's inflation. If a chain issues new coins each year to pay validators, holders who don't stake see their share diluted and stakers roughly keep theirs. So a staking yield isn't free money: it's paid in the same coin, and if that coin loses 30% against the dollar or the peso, a 4% reward won't save you.

Say you hold USD 1,000 of SOL and the app shows a variable staking rate. A year later you have more SOL, but if the price halved, your balance is worth about USD 500 plus the rewards. The yield is counted in coins. Your rent is paid in pesos.

Watch how the rate is quoted, too. APY or APRAnnual percentage yield (APY) includes compounding; annual percentage rate (APR) does not. The same base rate always looks higher as APY. figures are estimates based on what the network paid recently, not a promise. Kraken, for example, states that its displayed rates are estimates based on past rewards and may change.

Lockups, unbonding and slashing

Native staking brings two technical risks that apps don't always explain.

Lockups. Some chains make you wait to exit, and during that wait you can't sell even if the price crashes. Exchanges hide this with "flexible" products that let you withdraw instantly because they only stake part of the pool or use their own liquidity; Kraken says its flexible option stakes only a portion of the assets. Fixed-term products make the lockup explicit: you agree not to touch your coins until a set date in exchange for a higher rate.

SlashingAn automatic penalty that destroys part of a validator's locked coins when it signs conflicting blocks or otherwise cheats.. If a validator cheats, for example by signing two conflicting blocks, the network destroys part of its stake and ejects it; if it merely goes offline, it loses small amounts and misses rewards. Ethereum.org covers this in its staking guide. If you stake through an exchange, slashing is the exchange's problem, but not every platform promises to cover it, so read the terms.

Running your own Ethereum validator takes 32 ETH. That's why most people use an exchange or liquid stakingA service that pools ETH from many people, stakes it and gives you a receipt token for your share that you can trade., which accepts small amounts but adds smart-contract risk. The basics of the network are in our Ethereum guide.

Custody risk: Celsius, BlockFi and FTX

The biggest risk in crypto yield isn't technical. It's handing your coins to a company that does things with them you can't see.

Celsius advertised yields as high as 17% a year on some products and lent deposits to funds and traders. It froze all withdrawals on 13 June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy a month later. In January 2023 a US bankruptcy judge ruled that crypto deposited in its yield program belonged to Celsius under its terms of use, which left hundreds of thousands of customers as unsecured creditors.

BlockFi paid USD 100 million to US regulators in February 2022 over its unregistered interest accounts. It had large exposure to FTX and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. Its plan administrator announced in 2024 a final distribution covering eligible customer claims: customers got their money back, but years later and through a bankruptcy court.

FTX wasn't a yield product, but it proves the same point: it used customer money without customers knowing and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. Its founder was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The Mexican chapter is Bitso. In November 2022, after FTX failed, Bitso said it would stop investing client funds with third parties, suspended yields on bitcoin and other crypto "until further notice" and kept only dollar-stablecoin yields at a much lower rate than at launch. Bitso said it had no exposure to FTX. The lesson: high rates usually come from lending your coins, and when markets turn, that source dries up.

Stablecoin yield carries risk too

Earning interest on USDT or USDC feels like the calm option: no price swings, and the rate is in dollars. It has three risks of its own.

First, the source. If it's lending, there's default risk; if it's short-term Treasuries, the rate falls when US rates fall. Second, the peg. USDC traded well below a dollar in March 2023 when a bank holding part of its issuer's reserves failed, and Terra's algorithmic UST, marketed with yields near 20% through the Anchor protocol, collapsed in May 2022 and never recovered. Third, custody, covered above.

If you hold stablecoins to protect savings from peso swings, or the other way around, understand the coin first: our USDT guide and MXNB guide explain how each works.

What the platforms used in Mexico offer

We checked what each platform publishes. Availability varies by country and by coin, and there's rarely an official Mexico-specific document, so we separate what we found from what we couldn't confirm.

Bitso launched its yield product in 2022 with high rates on stablecoins and bitcoin, cut it back after FTX and, according to press reports, added ether and solana yields again from late 2024, with cardano and polkadot afterwards. A Finantres review says proof-of-stake yields come from staking and stablecoin yields from short-term liquidity instruments, paid weekly. The app-store listing advertises "up to 4%" a year on dollars. We found no public Bitso page with the full terms, so read them in the app. More in our Bitso review.

Binance centers on Simple Earn. The flexible option pays daily rewards with near-instant redemption; the fixed option pays more for a lockup. Peso deposits go through Medá, Binance's Mexican payment company, but crypto and Earn products sit with the global entity. Details in the Binance review.

Kraken is the one many Americans already know, with a history worth noting: in February 2023 it ended staking for US clients and paid USD 30 million to settle with the SEC, then later relaunched staking in most US states. Its help center lists country-specific Earn restrictions, and Mexico isn't among them. It also warns that rewards aren't guaranteed and that geographic restrictions apply. Our Kraken review covers its USD-based funding from Mexico. Bybit describes some fixed terms as "principal protected," which means you get back the same number of coins, not the same value, and only if the platform stays solvent.

Using a US account after you move

Many expats keep staking through the US or European account they opened back home. Two things to check. First, residency: platforms tie products to your country of residence, and updating your address to Mexico can switch staking on or off, or change which entity serves you. Keeping an old address you no longer live at can breach the terms and get an account frozen at the worst moment. Second, the rules follow the entity, not you. Kraken's US staking history shows a regulator can shut a product overnight for one country's customers.

Mexican rules: Fintech Law, CNBV and IPAB

Mexico's framework makes three things clear.

First, no exchange holds a Mexican authorization to offer crypto to the public. What exists are electronic payment funds institutions, such as Bitso's Nvio or Binance's Medá, licensed by the CNBV to handle your pesos. Crypto custody sits with a foreign entity, as we explain in our guide to whether crypto is legal in Mexico.

Second, the Fintech Law bars those institutions from paying you interest. Article 29 says payment funds institutions can't pay customers interest or any other monetary return on their balances. In practice, that's why yields in these apps are paid on crypto and stablecoins held by the foreign entity, not on your pesos.

Third, there's no IPAB cover. Mexico's deposit insurer protects up to 400,000 UDIS per person per bank, at banks only. Neither payment-company balances nor exchange crypto are covered, just as FDIC insurance doesn't cover crypto at US platforms. If a platform fails, your claim follows the law of the country where your coins were held.

Taxes: income in the US, a gray zone in Mexico

For US citizens and green-card holders, the IRS position is explicit: under Revenue Ruling 2023-14, staking rewards are income when you gain dominion and control over them, at their fair market value then, and you're taxed on worldwide income wherever you live. Selling later creates a separate gain or loss.

For Mexican tax residents, which can include foreigners with residency, the SAT has published no staking rule. The common reading treats rewards as income on receipt or on sale, but there's no official criterion. Keep a dated log of every reward with its value in pesos and dollars. Our crypto tax guide for Mexico covers residents, non-residents and the cross-border overlap.

Checklist before you turn on any yield

So, is it worth it?

It can make sense if you already hold ETH or SOL for the long run and accept their risks: staking earns more coins on something you'd hold anyway. It makes much less sense to buy a coin for its rate, or to leave a large balance on a platform for a couple of extra points a year. If your real question is when to buy rather than how much it earns, our guide on the best time to buy crypto is the place to go.