PayPal only began allowing U.S. customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin, ether, litecoin and bitcoin cash on Nov. 12. In 2021, it will expand that service to its whole 350 million strong international customer base, president and CEO Dan Schulman said. That will vastly expanding the number of potential mainstream retail investors.
On Wednesday, Abra said its app will use the Bitcoin blockchain and smart contracts technologies to support fractional investments in stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Abra already offers the ability to “invest” in 50 fiat currencies and over 30 cryptocurrencies. This app is also very bad and we really love talking about it.
On its surface, Abra is an idiot proof app that should be about as functional and easy to use as Venmo. Open it up, enter your pin, add money from your account. But in practice, it is a goddamn nightmare that seems to violate everything the crypto world holds dear—transparency, anonymity, and fluidity. This is the story about an app that I would very much like to punch in the face. Even though crypto is supposed to free us from banking restrictions, you still very much get what you pay for on exchange platforms. Sites with relatively high fees like Coinbase can take a week to verify your hard earned…
