The Venmo app – which is a division of PayPal – has agreed to let all users buy, sell and hold digital tokens. The news was announced earlier in the week, and many believe this will move cryptocurrencies deeper into mainstream territory.
The Venmo App Has Said “Yes” to Crypto Beginning last Tuesday, Venmo users can invest in four mainstream cryptocurrencies. They are bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and bitcoin cash. They can use these assets to purchase goods and services granted they agree to the extremely loose rule that all crypto transactions must consist of at least one dollar. They can also utilize Venmo’s social feed to tell others about their purchases and potentially invite them to take part in investing themselves.
PayPal has been a big instigator of bitcoin and crypto’s mainstream journeys. As the world’s largest digital payment processor, the company first announced that it would allow people to utilize crypto and purchase digital assets beginning last October. At the time, bitcoin was trading for around $10,000 per unit, though the news was well received and caused the currency to spike as high as $13,000 within a few days.
From there, PayPal announced that it would permit bitcoin and crypto payments at checkout, though this was something the company did not offer fully at the beginning. Rather, this would be a feature that the firm would roll out over time, giving certain users a chance to try things about before it was released on a general level. Either way, if this many Venmo users can now pay with crypto, it looks like the feature is ready for widespread testing.
Darrell Esch – senior vice president and general manager of Venmo – explained in a statement:
No matter where you are in your cryptocurrency journey, crypto on Venmo will help our community to learn and explore cryptocurrencies on a trusted platform and directly in the app they know and love. Our goal is to provide our customers with an easy-to-use platform that simplifies the process of buying and selling cryptocurrencies and demystifies some of the common questions and misconceptions that consumers may have.
A Leading Financial App Venmo is arguably one of the world’s largest and most popular payment apps, boasting approximately 70 million total users at the time of writing. It often competes with Square’s Cash App, though it is difficult to say which one comes out on top. Square is also a mega bitcoin fan, having added more than $150 million in BTC to its private stash over the past six months.
In the meantime, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continue to gain serious traction following heavy price surges that have occurred over the previous week. BTC has hit a new all-time high of roughly $63,000 following news that Coinbase would be listed on the Nasdaq, though since then, the price has fallen somewhat and is now at $55,000.
Tags: bitcoin, PayPal, Venmo