Venmo Crypto Wallet Draws Tons of Users and Some Rolling Eyes

Salome Gongadze is tired of hearing about crypto. Whether it’s her friends talking about their latest gains or ads clogging up her newsfeeds, she can’t seem to escape the world of Bitcoin and digital wallets.

So when the 23-year-old, who works in public policy research in the Washington area, opened up her Venmo account recently, she encountered an unwelcome surprise — the payment app had rolled out its new “Cash Back to Crypto” feature, which allows credit cardholders to automatically purchase crypto from their Venmo account using the cash back they’ve earned from purchases.

“I don't get the point of it, that's not what Venmo is supposed to be for,” said Gongadze, who uses Venmo a couple times a week. “I think crypto is stupid, and now this is just another place where I have to see it.”

Gongadze’s frustration echoes similar sentiments expressed across Twitter recently as avid Venmo users received multiple emails and notifications from the company touting the new offering, which first started in August. It also highlights how consumer-focused companies in today’s crypto-crazed world are feeling the pressure to provide services connected to digital coins and are willing to risk alienating — or confusing — a portion of their user base in order to keep up with the demands of a growing constituency for whom crypto is a new fact of life. That pressure is likely only magnified during a month like this, when Bitcoin rallied to yet another all-time high.

“When they do market research, they hear lots of people saying, ‘We need crypto,’” said Eric Johnson, professor of business at Columbia Business School. “Whether that is essential to their business remains to be seen.”