Estonian bank LHV has unveiled that its customers will soon be able to trade a range of cryptocurrencies from its mobile app. To offer this service, LHV has partnered with platforms Bitstamp to manage exchanges and BitGo to store crypto-assets.
Bitcoin adoption continues in Estonia
Already considered a crypto-friendly territory, especially for the regulatory aspect, Estonia is still becoming more open to crypto-currencies. Local institutions are greatly helping the adoption of crypto-assets and LHV Bank has just taken a new initiative in this direction.
Starting next week, all customers of LHV, one of the country’s largest financial institutions, will be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies from the bank’s mobile app.
NEW – LHV becomes the first bank in Estonia to allow customers to buy Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/tjvEC8XPcX
– Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) November 22, 2021
At the launch of this new offering, LHV customers will be able to buy and sell 8 major crypto-currencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Uniswap’s UNI, Polygon’s MATIC, the eponymous AAVE token, Stellar’s XLM blockchain and Chainlink’s LINK.
A well-established offering
Exchanges via the mobile app will be handled by Bitstamp, a Luxembourg-based exchange platform.
When it comes to storing customers’ crypto-assets, LHV is collaborating with BitGo, a solution highly valued by institutions that manages more than $65 billion in cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.
In parallel, LHV will be offering a number of valuable services such as pre-filling tax forms, so that its clients can quickly and correctly declare their crypto-currency gains.
Given the increasingly mature level of development of crypto-assets and their growing popularity, we are ready to include this new asset class in the range of products offered to our clients,” adds Martin Mets, head of investment services at LHV.
Martin Mets moderates by pointing out that crypto-currencies are still “very volatile assets”. However, he says that for a risk-aware client, crypto assets can play an important role in their portfolio.
