3 min read
Revolut, the challenger bank that lets its customers buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies, today announced that its US customers can now use Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. That means that US customers of Revolut can now buy, hold and sell four cryptocurrencies, the others being Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Both Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin are Bitcoin spinoffs. Bitcoin Cash, the seventh-largest coin by market capitalization, is identical to Bitcoin save for its block size, which is eight times larger. Litecoin, the ninth-largest coin by market cap, is also similar to Bitcoin; its main differences include a different hashing algorithm and block transaction times.
London-based Revolut is a challenger bank, meaning that it tries to beat regular retail banks at their own game. For Revolut, this means a shiny app, lower currency conversion fees, and the ability to create new debit cards at the press of a button. Oh, and the crypto stuff.
The bank is very popular. Revolut disclosed in its most recent financial statement, published on August 12, that it holds £2.2 billion in fiat holdings. In February, the bank raised $500 million in a funding round.
Revolut started offering crypto to its European customers in December 2017 and brought crypto trading to its US customers in July. (It only launched its debit card in the US in March). For European customers, Revolut also supports Stellar and XRP.
There are a few catches to Revolut’s crypto offering in both Europe and in the US. The main caveat is that you don’t have custody over the Bitcoin you buy—Revolut handles it on your behalf. Accordingly, you can only send cryptocurrencies to other Revolut users.
That means that you can’t transfer it to another wallet or buy ETH to use on decentralized finance protocols, such as non-custodial lending protocols or synthetic stocks (DeFi is the hot topic du jour of the cryptosphere—investors have poured over $9 billion into its smart contracts).
It also means that you can only sell it back to Revolut; you can’t sell it, for instance, on Binance. A spokesperson told Mashable in July that these services are “a focus for the product team going forward.”
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