Crypto.com Aims for Its First Profitable Year Despite Asian Setback
Cryptoasset-power debit card and trading services firm Crypto.com said it is on track to end the year with its figures in the black for the first time in its history. But it will have to accomplish this feat without one of its key partners, after an accounting scandal involving the German card issuer Wirecard forced Crypto.com to halt an enrollment dive in Asian markets.
Kris Marszalek, CEO of the Hong Kong-based Crypto.com, told Bloomberg that his company was “really fortunate to be growing rapidly during this time of a global pandemic.”
He also noted,
“August was another record-breaking month for the company in terms of revenue and all transactional metrics.”
But the CEO conceded that Crypto.com is now “in the process of migrating away from Wirecard both in Asia and Europe.”
The Wirecard scandal involves a series of accounting irregularities dating all the way back to 2008 and partially exposed in 2015, involving what the Financial Times labeled a significant gap between the short-term assets and liabilities in Wirecard’s payment business operations. The scandal came to head earlier this month after the German parliament announced it would launch a probe into the firm and the state’s failure to prevent what it has termed widespread corporate fraud.
The Crypto.com chief stated that his firm is continuing to enroll new debit card users in Europe. However, rollouts have been put on hold in Asia until the firm finds a new partner in the region.
Previously known as Monaco (an ICO from 2017), the company acquired the Crypto.com domain in 2018. Monaco was already lead by Marszalek back then.
Crypto.com currently offers a metal Visa card with a cashback of up to 5% on all spending to its customers in Europe, the USA, and Singapore, with more markets to be added soon.
Building on the success of its crypto.com chain coin (CRO), which has become the 11th-largest cryptoasset, with a current market capitalization of some USD 2.9bn, the provider said it is developing a community around its token. It offers a range of cashbacks on purchases, promotions, discounts, and referrals that it thinks will to lure more people to the crypto sector.
Crypto.com has also been hosting competitions that it hopes will see increased crypto activity from its users. After listing the DeFi app Decentralised Information Asset (DIA) token on its platform this month, Crypto.com launched a campaign with a prize pool worth USD 20,000 in DIA tokens for users making DIA deposits.
Also in September, the company launched DeFi Swap, “a decentralized protocol deployed on the Ethereum blockchain” for swaping and “farming” DeFi coins.
The company claimed it had met key milestones for this year, including the launch of its wallet and initiating the shipment of MCO Visa cards in Europe, both of which took place in May. Crypto.com said that in the months ahead, it will look to launch of its Chain mainnet, as well as expand the MCO Visa card’s coverage to the Asia-Pacific region and Canada.
At pixel time (13:01 UTC), CRO trades at USD 0.169 and is down by almost 2% in a day, trimming its weekly gains to 13%. The price is unchanged in a month, while it rallied by 329% in a year.
CRO price chart:
