Venmo Will Allow All 70 Million Users to Buy, Hold, and Sell Cryptocurrency

As of Tuesday, you can not only use Venmo to creep on celebrity transactions and your couple-friends’ relationship dynamics—you can use it to buy cryptocurrency, too. The move comes just a week after Coinbase’s head-turning direct listing.

Venmo users can now buy, hold, and sell bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, and bitcoin cash—as long as the transaction is at least $1—using funds from their Venmo balances, linked bank accounts, or debit cards.

• The feature will roll out to all 70 million+ users in coming weeks.

Charting the course

In 2018, Square’s Cash App—one of PayPal and Venmo’s main competitors—began supporting cryptocurrency.

Fast-forward to: October 2020, when Venmo polled customers to find 30% had purchased crypto or equities—and of those, 20% had done so during the pandemic. Product/market fit: ✅

That same month, PayPal snagged New York’s first “conditional Bitlicense,” giving it the green light to allow customers to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency. PayPal rolled out the feature to customers in November 2020, and last month, it began allowing users to pay for any purchase with crypto.

Big picture: In recent years, cryptocurrency has gained popularity as an investment and as a form of payment. Coinbase processed 600% more crypto payments year over year in 2019, and more and more businesses are either testing or accepting them: Xbox, Tesla, some Coca-Cola vending machines—even Pizza Huts in Venezuela. —HF