Self-custody of our funds is encouraged and this is very much needed for us to ensure that we only have control of our funds. There are two ways that we can follow to ensure that we have the self-custody of our funds. Either we can use decentralized wallets like metamask or we can go for hardware wallets like a ledger. Using the decentralized wallets is free and there is no charge for using this but hardware wallets are expensive and we need to pay to buy one.
Metamask has been adding a lot of functionalities recently in the wallet to provide an even better experience to the users. Maybe it is because now they can see the spike in the user base and providing better functionalities will help a lot. I remember that this wallet was offering minimal functionalities but now they have added a bunch of features which is a good thing. They have added portfolio options to see the overall holding and value as per the current market. This is one of the useful features I like the lot as one can easily glimpse the overall Crypto holding.
Now the wallet has taken another step ahead and added the option to buy Crypto using Fiat currency. Recently they announced that now Indian users will be able to buy cryptocurrency using INR in their wallet. While Indian exchanges are struggling to provide this function as of now due to banking restrictions but this wallet is partnered with one of the companies to enable this feature for the users. Now they have taken one step ahead and going to offer support for a bunch of Fiat currencies to be used for crypto purchases.
Some supported currencies include the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, Turkish lira, Japanese yen, Mexican peso, South Korean won, Swedish krona, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, and Australian dollar. There are currently 18 cryptocurrencies supported by Mercuryo including Ether (ETH), Basic Attention Token (BAT), USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), Tether (USDT), Avalanche (AVAX), Polygon (MATIC), Fantom (FTM) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
As of now, they are supporting some of the popular coins and even the fiat currency options however we can expect it to expand further. This is a good move I believe as now we need not depend upon the centralized exchnages. I have not tried it but may think of doing it soon. This has not been mentioned if we can also sell the crypto using the same method. If its possible then for sure we can expect a major shift from centralized exchnages to decentralized wallets as we are going to get this major function.
Since the fiat currency is involved so some art of regulation may be needed to avoid AML issues as no government will encourage or support this if the method is used for the wrong intentions. Hopefully, there should be some ways to ensure it, and even if its not as of now then also we may expect to have it in the future.
Thank you