Robinhood, Revolut and PayPal’s recent crypto initiatives highlight how traditional financial powerhouses increasingly make digital assets a key part of their strategies.
“The floodgates are starting to open,” Markus Infanger, senior vice-president at RippleX, Ripple’s payments platform, told DL News.
Several industry experts DL News spoke with shared that sentiment after a month that saw Wall Street giants, fintechs and payment behemoths tap into digital assets.
“These moves are a big deal and signal a bullish trend for crypto and digital assets that may not have been fully appreciated yet,” Pooja Lekhi, vice chair of the MBA Department of Quantitative Studies at the University Canada West, said.
Here are some of the companies that have made moves to expand their crypto and digital assets services over the past month.
Robinhood
Trading app Robinhood rolled out crypto transfer services to its European customers earlier this month.
It is the latest sign that Robinhood is increasingly pushing into digital assets in a bid to become “the on-ramp to the crypto world.” The fintech announced plans to acquire the Bitstamp exchange for $200 million in June.
Robinhood did not return a request for comment.
Revolut
UK challenger bank Revolut is pushing hard into crypto. Its crypto team headcount rose by 60% this year to over 100 workers, a spokesperson told news outlet Financial News.
In August, the neobank rolled out new virtual cards that enabled customers to pay with crypto.
The news came after Revolut published a record annual profit of $545 million, partly driven by its crypto push.
“Crypto has become a key element of our ‘one app, all things money’ value proposition,” a Revolut spokesperson told DL News.
PayPal
PayPal announced in October that it had used its PayPalUSD stablecoin to pay EY invoices.
“B2B payments is ripe for innovation,” Steve Everett, PayPal’s director of market development, said in a statement at the time.
He noted that digital currencies, like its stablecoin, will enable businesses to make instant payments around the clock.
The payments are the latest examples of how PayPal has expanded its crypto services since they were launched in 2014.
PayPal did not return a request for comment.
State Street and BlackRock
Financial firms are experimenting with using tokenised financial instruments like bonds and money market funds to pledge in transactions.
Digital versions of these assets could automate the processes by which investment banks post collateral, making it faster and more capital efficient — a market that analysts say could be worth $19 trillion.
State Street bank is one firm working on projects of this kind, chief product officer Donna Milrod told Financial News.
BlackRock launched a tokenised money market fund, BUIDL, in March that could be used for this purpose.
Regulators are interested in helping firms unlock this potential. Bloomberg reported that advisers from financial institutions are helping the Commodity Futures Trading Commission consider how they might use funds like BUIDL as collateral.
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is down 1.6% over the past 24 hours to about $$60,804.
Ethereum fell 1.8% to $2,383.
What we’re reading
Mango Labs accuses two Mango DAO leaders of embezzling $10m during Eisenberg trial — DL News
FBI Created Crypto Token ‘NexFundAI’ to Lure Crypto Scammers — Unchained
Trump-linked World Liberty Financial to raise $300 million at $1.5 billion valuation: Roadmap — The Block
Antonio Juliano Returns to CEO Position at dYdX Trading After Nearly Five-Month Hiatus — Unchained
Eric Johansson and Joanna Wright both report on the intersection of fintech and crypto. Got a tip? Email them at joanna@dlnews.com and eric@dlnews.com.
