Got another credit card.
Venmo has been trying to get me to apply for their credit card, so today I said why not and applied out of sheer boredom. After a very short application process I was approved immediately for a card with a $3000 limit. I already have access to it even before getting the physical card. The APR is abysmal (26.5%) and I have no real intention of using the thing, but it could be good to have around in case of emergency or just to increase my credit rating.
Speaking of my credit rating, I was randomly sent to collections for this bogus $200 charge from a car insurance company. They never sent me a bill and denied the charge ever existed, so that's fun. Looks like my credit score is about 20 points lower than it should be due to the bogus charge. Not really a big deal because I rarely ever need a good score in the first place but still... it's the principal of the thing.
Paper Statement Fee: $2
The one weird thing I noticed about this particular card that I've never experienced before is that they charge $2 a month if you opt-in to getting a paper billing statement. I did not realize this was a thing, but it makes sense considering that Venmo itself is pretty much run on a somewhat shoestring budget.
This is something I've reported on before. It's one reason why they don't allow transactions to be reversed... due to the fact that they would have to hire a team to inspect and approve such requests to mitigate fraud. Their business model doesn't allow for such happenstances.
In any case this was a bit odd for me because I've never seen an opt-in option for getting a paper statement. It's always been the other way around: I get a paper statement by default and have to opt-out of it after setting up the account. This caused a slight amount of confusion as a user who's done it the other way like a dozen times. But in the end it makes sense that it would be the other way around because they're charging $2 for a service that nobody under 50 years old would ever want. Considering Venmo's young demographic I'd imagine that less than 1% of there users would click this button.
And then I saw this:
Rewards
Your cash back transfers to your Venmo balance 1-3 days after statement end. Choose where you automatically apply it each month.
PURCHASE CRYPTO ⚫
Uuuhhhhhh, hwat?
Is this real?
Crypto has been an option on Venmo for a while now... in fact I tested it out and bought $20 back in the day. Seeing as that position is up 73% today implies that I bought in when BTC was $40k... which would have been early 2022 right before the market officially cratered into the bear market. Of course I can't cash this out until I do extra KYC... so the pocket change just sits there untouched for the time being. Neat how you can buy in without doing this required KYC. But I digress.
Seeing the option to automatically pump cashback directly into crypto was extremely jarring to see. I guess it just goes to show ya just how early in the game we are. As far as financial institutions are concerned clearly Paypal/Venmo got in the game quite early compared to their laggard counterparts. I'm guessing it's going to pay off big for them as we head into the FOMO.
They are not half-assing this... at all.
So many tutorials and information on crypto in the Venmo app that I never cared to follow up on until now. It's dizzying really. And to know I can just... click a button and have my cashback go directly into Bitcoin. Wow... maybe I will use this card to make purchases? Free Bitcorns fellas.
Can you even imagine the stories people might tell at the peak of the next bull market? It's possible that cashback policy like this could skyrocket in value. If a credit card user spends thousands on their card and then pays it all off... and then the underlying crypto just decides to go x100... well then their 1%, 2%, or even 3% cashback could go x100.
I'm not like... a mathematician or anything... but an x100 on 3% cashback is 300%. Imagine people actually making money on the next run just by using their cards to buy stuff and paying it off with their traditional income. It could get real crazy round these parts. That's an absolutely insane flywheel.
I couldn't even take a screenshot of this one because my phone threw an error because of a "privacy concern". Not sure why that would be considering the content of the page but whatever.
Crypto is volatile, so it can rise and fall in value quickly.
Yes it can Venmo... it sure can...
I don't know am I taking crazy pills? It seems like this stuff is getting built out pretty quickly under the cover of darkness. Never heard anyone talk or reference these developments thus far. Maybe I'm living under a rock.
Conclusion
Venmo and Paypal seem to have been building out their crypto infrastructure for the last 2 years right under our noses. The slow crawl of centralized custodianship clearly intends to keep sprawling outwardly during the primary phase of mainstream adoption. Venmo in particular is positioned shockingly well to capture a lot of the hype that comes their way. Be on the lookout for more developments within a similar vein going forward.
