Crypto trading has proven extremely profitable for U.S. payment companies like Block (formerly Square) and PayPal, and London-based Wirex is making this market a focal point of its expansion plans.
"The U.S. is an attractive market, given its crypto awareness and its size," said Pavel Matveev, CEO and co-founder of Wirex, which this week launched its app and debit card in the U.S.
Wirex is addressing a popular use case by allowing consumers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies — building balances that can be converted and used for payments in traditional funds. The U.K. firm's entrance pits it against mainstream payment companies as well as cryptocurrency firms like Coinbase and Bakkt.
Wirex hopes to gain share by connecting crypto trading directly to rewards and merchant payments in a single experience without consumer fees.
"Users can have everything in one app," Matveev said. "They can send and exchange crypto instantly with zero commissions and connect to a card with no need to preload."
More than a quarter of U.S. consumers already own Bitcoin, and 55% of those investors entered the market for the first time in 2021, according to Grayscale, which recently surveyed 1,000 people in the U.S.
Grayscale also found 59% of consumers are interested in investing in Bitcoin, up from 55% in 2020 and 36% in 2019, noting that growth has come despite the tendency of market swing in Bitcoin's valuation — 46% of people's attitudes toward cryptocurrency have remained the same despite its price changes, while 43% view cryptocurrency more favorably. And while 70% consumers invest by using cryptocurrency exchanges, the remainder use payment apps, according to Grayscale.
For its U.S. launch, Wirex partnered with Zero Hash, a Chicago-based technology company that supports compliance for digital asset transactions. Zero Hash is regulated as a money transmitter under state laws in the U.S. Wirex is also working with online payment technology provider Checkout.com to enable application programming interface-powered connections to merchants in the U.S.; and Sutton Bank in Attica, Ohio, to issue Wirex's Visa debit card in the U.S.
The partners may also benefit. The partnership with Checkout.com jumpstarts merchant acceptance for crypto payments, and provides liquidity for cryptocurrencies, said Richard Crone, a payments consultant in San Mateo, California. Visa also stands to expand its distribution through its partnership with Wirex in the U.S, Crone said.
"Visa prepaid is getting the recognition and funding for all of these new accounts, and putting the card into circulation for both online and ultimately physical merchants," Crone said. "There's billions of capital going into crypto, and Visa's prepaid unit and Sutton are getting to ride what wave."
Wirex launched its first cryptocurrency debit card in 2014, and has more than 4.5 million users in Asia Pacific and the European Economic Area. It offers buy, hold and exchange services in U.S. dollars and 37 cryptocurrencies. The Visa partnership will enable access to a merchant network with 61 million global locations.
Wirex additionally offers an incentive marketing service, CryptoBack, which offers reward points that can be exchanged for cryptocurrencies. It also plans to launch an interest-earning account in the U.S. shortly.
"We see people [viewing] this as a challenger bank in the U.S.," Matveev said. "If you don't need or want to use cryptocurrency, you can use these services for traditional payments or currency accounts."
PayPal supports buying, selling and holding cryptocurrencies, and also offers payments through
Cryptocurrency exchanges such as
"A number of companies, including PayPal, Revolut, and others, are expanding the range of their offerings, and trying to position themselves as 'super apps' where clients can do many things from the same place, whether it’s payments, crypto-trading, or even going beyond finance, such as booking a hotel," said Zilvinas Bareisis, a senior analyst at Celent in London. "Having said that, not every payments company will become a super app."
