That convenience, however, comes at a cost that can eat away at returns.
The apps are also meant to be fun, with some featuring emojis and digital stickers decorating transaction notes.
The services are so widespread that even President Joe Biden reportedly uses Venmo to sendgifts to his grandchildren.
The convenience of buying cryptocurrency on payment apps, however, comes with trade-offs.
Cash App, owned bySquare, supports only Bitcoin, the biggest and most widely known cryptocurrency.
(Square is run byJack Dorsey, another cryptocurrency promoter and the chief executive of Twitter.)
Cryptocurrency has expanded in popularity over the last decade.
Now Bitcoin is trading at around $63,000.
Facebook is trying to launch a cryptocurrency,Diem, along with a consortium of partners.
El Salvador embraced Bitcoin as a national currency, though itsadoption has been bumpy.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now widely available at trading websites and through stock tradingapps like Robinhood.
ATMs handling cryptocurrency have popped up around the world, though they tend to charge hefty fees.
Debit cards backed by cryptocurrency are available through companies including Coinbase and BitPay.
It’s already brought in nearly $130 million in the first half of 2021.
Buying Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency offerings on PayPal means you’ve let the company store your cryptocurrency.
The same applies to Venmo.
But he added that most people won’t really learn much about crypto if they stay on one app.
“You kind of just have to go down the rabbit hole yourself,” Slotkin said.
To really interest users in cryptocurrency, payment apps will need to introduce wallets and exchanges, analysts say.
