Venmo Crypto Support Expands To Cashback Credit Card Rewards

PayPal-owned Venmo has announced another cryptocurrency feature that is available to its credit cardholders: crypto cashback rewards. Credit card users already receive cashback rewards based on their usage; that, as you'd expect, comes in the form of actual cash. Going forward, however, users also have the option of getting those rewards in bitcoin or select other digital coins rather than dollars.

The new option is called Cash Back to Crypto, which can be enabled by toggling on a new setting. The feature rewards cardholders by using cashback money to automatically purchase the equivalent of whichever cryptocurrency the user selects. The feature can be turned off at a later time.

The new rewards option comes with a big benefit for crypto-enthusiasts: you won't have to pay the fees you'd otherwise be charged when buying cryptocurrencies. The feature only allows users to redeem their cashback for one of four total digital coins, however: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum.

Though there are many platforms for directly purchasing crypto, the new automatic cashback-to-crypto process may prove a solid way for the average consumer to slowly amass digital assets without any effort on their part. Given the small-sum transactions that are likely to take place, avoiding the purchase fee is another bonus.

There is a big downside to using Venmo for acquiring crypto, however — for now, at least, Venmo does not support transferring crypto assets outside of the account, which means you'll have to hold them in the Venmo account through which they were acquired. This will prove problematic for users who prefer to hold their crypto in an offline or third-party wallet.