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Venmo

Latest release: 9.32.1 ( 27th October 2022 ) 🔍 Last analysed 12th April 2022 . Can't send or receive bitcoins
4.1 ★★★★★
10 million
17th May 2010

Jump to verdict 

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Please help us spread the word discussing the risks of centralized custodians with Venmo  via their Twitter!

Do your own research!

Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.

The Analysis 

On their website we find:

What cryptocurrencies does Venmo support?
Customers in the US (except Hawaii) can buy, sell and hold four different cryptocurrencies on Venmo: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

  • Bitcoin was invented in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, it is the largest cryptocurrency by value.
  • Ethereum is also known as Ether. It is the 2nd largest cryptocurrency by value. It is a decentralized Blockchain featuring smart contract functionality.
  • Bitcoin Cash was created in 2017, as a fork of Bitcoin, due to concerns about Bitcoin’s ability to scale. Bitcoin Cash looks to increase scalability by featuring a larger block size, which increases the number of transactions that can fit in each block.
  • Litecoin was created in 2011 by Charlie Lee. Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin and is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies.

So they support Bitcoin but:

Can I transfer cryptocurrency into and out of Venmo?
Currently, you can only hold the cryptocurrency that you buy on Venmo in your account. Additionally, the cryptocurrency in your account cannot be transferred to other accounts on or off Venmo.

So this is not an actual bitcoin wallet but merely a tool to speculate on the value of bitcoin, with no assurance that they actually hold the bitcoin “you own” on the app.

(lw)

Verdict Explained

The product can't send or receive BTC.

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

No send/receive!

Can it send and receive bitcoins?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Can't send or receive bitcoins".

If it is for holding BTC but you can’t actually send or receive them with this product then it doesn’t function like a wallet for BTC but you might still be using it to hold your bitcoins with the intention to convert back to fiat when you “cash out”.

All products in this category are custodial and thus funds are at the mercy of the provider.

The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.