What is Helva?

Helva is a platform for borrowing fiat money against crypto collateral. You keep your crypto — you don’t sell it — and you receive the loan as an ordinary bank transfer.

At launch, loans are in CHF and USD (IBAN). We’re working on EUR, EURe, and GBP.

The problem Helva solves

If you hold ETH or BTC and need cash, your usual options are suboptimal:

• Sell — you lose your position and may trigger a taxable event.
• Borrow in DeFi — you get a stablecoin, then still have to off-ramp it yourself and carry the full bank-compliance burden when the money lands.
• Use a custodial lender — you hand your collateral to a company and trust their balance sheet; the money often arrives “crypto-flagged”.

Helva removes the off-ramp and the custody trade-off: you collateralize on-chain in a vault you control, and Helva clears the fiat side so the money arrives like a normal bank payment.

Who it’s for

• Borrowers — long-term holders who want liquidity without selling, and businesses with crypto treasuries needing working capital.
• Lenders — people and institutions who want fixed yield secured by liquid crypto collateral, settled into their own bank account, with no crypto setup.

How it’s built

Side	What handles it
Collateral	Anvil protocol on Ethereum mainnet — self-custodial vaults you control. Audited by OpenZeppelin and Trail of Bits.
Fiat clearing & guarantee	Helva, acting as broker, payment-clearing agent and guarantor.
Contracts	Lending agreements under Swiss law.

Wording matters

Helva offers non-custodial collateral management — the coins stay in your vault. Fiat clearing and credit-asset settlement are custodial services. Helva holds the right to convert the reserved amount, as agent for the lender. We’re precise about this distinction throughout these docs.

Next: How it works →