German neobank N26, announced today that it is launching a cryptocurrency trading product called “N26 Crypto.” The bank said the new product will first be made available to Austrian users and will expand to other markets over the coming weeks.
Co-founder and CEO of N26, Maximilian Tayenthal, had earlier revealed the bank’s intention to launch a crypto service this year.
To enable its customers to access crypto, the bank will leverage crypto exchange Bitpanda’s trading and custody platform.
N26 stated that its customers will be able to trade nearly 200 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Cardano (ADA) through the newly-launched product. However, the digital bank will launch its initial offer with 100 crypto assets to trade.
“The launch addresses strong local demand, where 40% of N26 users are either actively trading, or have expressed interest in investing in cryptocurrencies,” N26 said.
N26 Launches Crypto Service Despite Bear Market
The N26 announcement comes at a time when the crypto sector is witnessing major turmoil with prices of major crypto assets losing more than half of their value since the beginning of this year.
N26 co-founder and co-CEO Valentin Stalf said despite the bear market, customers’ demand for the asset class is still on the rise.
“While cryptocurrencies have seen a decline in value over the last year, they remain a requested and interesting asset class for investors and a growing part of the financial system.”
Founded nine years ago and based in Berlin, N26 is a digital bank that operates across 24 markets and has over seven million customers worldwide. This means its latest move could result in massive adoption for crypto considering the number of customers the bank has.
N26 Joins the Crypto Bandwagon
While this marks N26’s first foray into the crypto sector, several other neobanks have continued to dive deeper into crypto in recent times.
Just recently, Brazil’s largest digital bank Nubank announced the launch of its token on the Polygon blockchain a few months after rolling out an in-app crypto trading and custody service powered by the blockchain infrastructure platform Paxos.
