Investment platform eToro has today announced that it will launch a cryptocurrency offering in the US, enabling users in the country to invest in ten cryptocurrencies initially, with more to be added throughout 2018. Users will also have access to social trading tools including a community feed, enabling them to engage in conversations about cryptocurrencies and follow the investment strategies of other US users.
The new offering, for which users can already register to the waiting listing, will initially support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, Dash, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Ethereum Classic, NEO, and EOS.
US investors will be provided with three ways to access the cryptocurrency markets: by manually investing in a cryptocurrency, by automatically copying the trades of other traders on the platform to benefit from their knowledge and investment expertise, or by investing in a Crypto CopyPortfolio which provides a diversified portfolio of major crypto assets.
Founded in 2006, eToro offers a multi-asset web-based investment platform that lets users easily buy, hold and sell assets, including ETFs, stocks and cryptocurrencies. The platform comes with social trading functionalities that allow novice investors to follow and copy the trades of more experienced traders. Experienced traders who let others copy their trades earn money. The platform boasts a community of more than ten million people.
Guy Hirsch, eToro’s newly appointed USA managing director, said:
“We are quickly moving toward a tokenized world, and digital investment platforms need to provide access to the assets investors want, allow the sharing of knowledge, and make transactions easy. eToro is committed to helping our users become better educated about both the risks and rewards that cryptocurrencies present, thereby enabling them trade and invest responsibly and successfully.”
Yoni Assia, CEO, and co-founder of eToro is a long-time cryptocurrency enthusiast who is involved in several startups in the space including Colu and the Colored Coins protocol. Assia stressed the excitement surrounding the launch of eToro in the US, noting that US users have shown strong enthusiasm for participating in these growing markets.
“With the huge growth that we saw in 2017, we feel now is the right time to open our services to U.S clients, we’re setting up a team here, Guy Hirsch is joining us as managing director of eToro USA, we are already FinCEN registered and are in the process of getting all the regulatory requirements to offer the platform in the U.S. We are very excited about enabling social crypto trading in the U.S later this year.”
As well as this news, CEO Yoni Assia made 2 further announcements about the company’s expansion during a speech at Consensus 2018 including the launch of their cryptocurrency wallet which will allow users to buy, send and receive the cryptocurrencies supported by eToro. We spoke with Yoni prior his talk to discuss the new products being developed by the company.
“A customer can currently buy on eToro, but until today we didn’t actually enable our customers to send and receive cryptocurrencies. We are one of the largest regulated financial institutions that deal with both cryptos and stocks and commodities, we needed to make sure that we did very rigorous testing and had regulatory approval that enabled users to send and receive cryptocurrencies. “
Later this year the company will also launch an exchange, which will allow for the trading of a wider range of cryptocurrencies and tokens as well as the ones already offered on the platform.
“We are going to launch an exchange later this year, which will also support a lot of the smaller tokens.”
eToro’s entrance into the US market comes just two months after the company announced a US$100 million funding round to support its global expansion as well as the development of blockchain-based technologies.
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