Adoption: Italian Bank Banca Sella Allows its Customers to Buy/Sell Bitcoin

As the whole of Italy is in a full lock-down, Banca Sella is now allowing customers to buy and sell Bitcoin through its innovative platform Hype.

Through the platform, users can create a Bitcoin wallet with the bank acting as an intermediary. However, the key distinction is that the end user has full control.

They can buy and sell the currency, store value without going through leaky exchanges.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are honeypot for hackers. Last year, billions of dollars’ worth of different cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin were stolen from these ramps.

1/ As a follow up to the events and comments of yesterday re: $BTC, #Binance and the #BinanceHack…

I have no philosophical issue with BTC. Fiat IS broken and that is not debatable. You can argue power usage rates, speed, fees or anything of the sort but that is not my fight.

— Eric Dadoun (@EDadoun) May 9, 2019

Even so, their significance cannot be understated. Exchanges as Binance and Coinbase, for instance, are agents of price discovery and provide liquidity.

Hype and Banca Sella: Buy and Sell Bitcoin

Now, Hype and Banca Sella will take it upon themselves to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through Hype without exposing user accounts to intermediary risks.

Their BTC wallet will be linked to their Hype account. This means that buyers of Bitcoin will not have to worry about top up another wallet or the account of another platform, but will use the balance on Hype directly.

But there is a catch.

Banca Sella has limits and users must upgrade to buy and sell more Bitcoin.

There are three accounts available: Starter, Plus, and Premium. Despite these limitations, there are over 1.2 million Italians transacting via Hype.

Coronavirus Lock-down is an opportunity for savvy Italian investors

The lock-down could provide another opportunity for users to dig deeper and get lost in the rabbit hole called crypto.

The way it is designed means the network cannot be interfered with by third parties and is actually deflationary.

With time, the number of coins rewarded per block is reduced and coupled with a fixed supply, BTC is constantly under strong buy pressure.

Central banks, including the ECB and government officials, have announced a stimulus package of over €20 billion. This devaluation affects savers as inflation decreases fiat’s purchasing power.

Even though Bitcoin’s value has also dropped in the face of this pandemic, its properties mean the coin is ideally a perfect agent for safely and cheaply transferring value across the globe should the situation worsen and the virus gets out of hand.