Major British fintech firm Revolut is expanding its cryptocurrency trading services in the United States.
As of July 15, users across the country — with the exception of Tennessee — can trade cryptocurrency on Revolut's app.
The original plan was to introduce this service in April. The crypto offering will be provided in partnership with Paxos.
Revolut's service has been available to the neobank’s European clients for several years now. Edward Cooper, head of crypto at Revolut told Cointelgraph that cryptocurrency was a strong user acquisition driver for the company in Europe and he hopes the same will be true for the U.S. Currently, Revolut has about 60,000 users in the country.
Cooper believes that the transparent fees and the fact that users are limited to trading within Revolut — they can't send or receive crypto from third-party wallets — will give it an advantage over incumbents like Coinbase, Kraken and others.
He said, “I would say our unique proposition is the fact that with Revolut, it's not just about the crypto service we have is very, very simple to use. [...] With a touch of a button, you can go straight into buying fiat currency. [...] Because our specialty is fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies, you can actually do many crypto crosses that you can't do anywhere in the world.”
Initially, the cryptocurrency assortment will be limited to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), but Revolut expects to add more currencies in the near future taking into account user demand.
Lockdown “turbocharged” interest in crypto
Cooper shared findings from a recent internal report that looked at the Revolut user behavior in the Italian region of Lombardy under the coronavirus-related lockdown. He noted that crypto activity of those users increased three-fold, stating, “It’s kind of turbocharged people’s interest in crypto.”