eToro, founded by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia, has officially launched its social investing and trading platform for digital currencies in the US. The move comes nine months after the company announced its plans for a US launch, as reported by "Globes" in May 2018.
The company says that the new platform enables customers in 32 states and territories in the US to trade in 13 cryptocurrencies. In the first quarter of next year, the platform will be expanded to trading in a range of types of financial assets, including stocks. Later on this year, the company plans to launch an international cryptocurrency platform, under the name eToroX.
eToro has more than 10 million registered users. It says its platform enables investors to share their portfolios and deals with the user community, which can follow their performance. "Investors for whom cryptocurrency trading is new will be able to learn about it from the community and from eToro's information sources."
Alongside the trading platform, the company offers a special cryptocurrency wallet app that enables users to transfer digital currencies from their accounts on the trading platform to their private wallet. The app currently supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), and Stellar (XLM). The company says that it will support additional currencies in the future.
One service that the platform offers users is CopyTrader, enabling them to track another user's investment portfolio automatically, and thereby gain exposure to the cryptocurrency trading strategy of investors with proven records. In addition, eToro offers CopyPortfolios, whereby investors can copy cryptographic asset portfolios built by the company's analysts. From today, three such investment portfolios will be available to traders in the US. eToro plans to add more portfolios later in the year.
eToro co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia told "Globes" today, "We are very happy to make our trading platform and blockchain wallet available to users in the US. Traders on eToro can not only carry out deals, but also see what others are doing, chat to each other, and copy the investment strategies of the most successful investors, and now users in the US will be able to buy, hold and sell cryptographic assets easily, to monitor their investments portfolios in real time, and to deal whenever they wish.
"eToro was founded eleven years ago with a vision of opening up the capital market to all investors, and now, with more than 10 million registered users around the world, we also want to open up for them the world of digital currencies. We believe that blockchain technology will bring about a revolution in the financial world, and cryptocurrencies are just the first step in this journey," Assia added.
eToro employs 570 people, 350 of them in Israel. In March 2018, it completed a fund-raising round of $100 million for expanding into new markets and blockchain research and development. According to market sources, the company valuation in the round, which was led by Chinese holding company China Minsheng Financial, was $800 million.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 7, 2019
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