CEO and co-founder Kris Marszalek told CoinDesk that transaction volumes on Crypto.com more than doubled between December and February, with app downloads also hitting all-time highs. «We saw a million users on our platform last September, and we continue to grow on a monthly basis in double-digit terms,» he said.
Even as markets were shaken by the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, exchange and payment provider Crypto.com says interest in cryptocurrencies reached an all-time high.
Based in Hong Kong, Crypto.com provides app-based trading services as well as crypto payment solutions through a Visa-powered bank card. When it was known as Monaco, the company raised a total of $26.7 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. It changed its name to Crypto.com after purchasing the domain name for a reported $10 million in 2018.
Marszalek says the recent robust growth could be a response to the radical steps central banks are taking to stabilize financial markets. In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the Federal Reserve on Monday launched quantitative easing (QE) with scope to purchase an unlimited amount of Treasury bills and mortgage-backed securities to prop up the U.S. financial system.
«People are very interested in crypto in this challenging time,» Marszalek said, adding that digital assets could offer investors an independent store of value and a possible hedge against the possible side-effects of QE.
Retail investors continued to use the Crypto.com platform even when the market tanked less than two weeks, he added: «People view this as a buying opportunity.»
Other platforms, too, experienced runaway volumes in recent weeks. Brian Norton, COO of MyEtherWallet, said there were now more people buying ether (ETH) on its platform than ever before. “We have never seen these numbers, not even during the big crash in winter 2018,» he added.
Binance.US CEO Catherine Coley said her firm had had «unprecedented trading volumes» with a particular interest in stablecoins and bitcoin (BTC). «Bitcoin’s recent jump while the rest of the market tumbles proves that unlike traditional companies, Bitcoin can and will survive without bailouts,» she said.
While Crypto.com would not disclose precise numbers, a spokesperson said March 2020 saw record trading volumes on the platform at levels three times higher than in December 2019.
«Crypto was built for a crisis like this,» said Marszalek. «February was a record month, and March looks to be even better.»
US Treasury Approves Square as Coronavirus Stimulus Lender
The bitcoin-friendly company behind Cash App, Square, announced Monday it is participating in the U.S. government’s emergency Paycheck Protection Program.This $350 billion lending program for small businesses provides loans that keep employees on payroll for at least two months, as part of the $2.3 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress. PayPal and Intuit (maker of QuickBooks) are the other fintech firms included in the program.
Jackie Reses, head of Square Capital, tweeted that Square will work with Salt Lake City-based Celtic Bank to roll out the lending program this week.
“We will notify sellers when their application is available via Square Dashboard, starting with employers whose application data we can verify automatically”, she tweeted.
Last Friday, Square founder and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that Cash App offers routing numbers so people who didn’t file tax returns can still accept stimulus checks. This long-standing feature has been used since 2018 to accept direct deposits from employers, even for those without a bank account.
Although the publicly traded Square has yet to release revenue statistics from Q1 2020, it would be surprising if Cash App didn’t profit from the surge in speculative bitcoin (BTC) trading in March. Bitcoin sales accounted for nearly half of the company’s quarterly revenue in Q4 2019. Last year, Dorsey said he wanted to help bitcoin achieve “currency status.”
It’s clear different components of the Square empire will take complementary approaches to fintech. The Square Crypto team, a skunkworks unit not related to Cash App’s bitcoin efforts, released an open source Lightning development toolkit in January.
Overall, one might expect to see more nimble moves from the fintech giant as it adjusts to users’ changing needs during the coronavirus crisis.
