Strike is letting its U.S. customers buy and sell bitcoin for almost zero in fees, sending shots across the bows of Coinbase, Square’s Cash App, PayPal and other incumbents.
The Chicago-based startup, best known for helping El Salvador adopt bitcoin (BTC, -0.41%), said Thursday it would charge only around 0.3% for brokering BTC trades in the 48 states and other U.S. jurisdictions where Strike operates. By comparison, Coinbase, which went public on the Nasdaq this year, collects as much as 3.99%, depending on the payment method and transaction size.
Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike and its parent company Zap Technologies, likened the move to throwing “a grenade in Coinbase’s HQ.” In a blog post, he called Coinbase’s fees “asinine.”
If widely adopted, Strike’s new service stands to drive down the price of bitcoin trades for retail investors in the U.S. market, a development anticipated by many a Wall Street analyst in the lead-up to Coinbase’s stock listing in April. Traditional stock brokerage apps saw a race to zero on fees; wouldn’t crypto incumbents see the same?
Cash App, offered by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square, takes about 2.2% in fees for bitcoin purchases, based on quotes the app gave a CoinDesk staffer Monday. Swan Bitcoin, which caters to long-term bitcoin holders, charges 0.99% to 2.29% depending on the membership plan and amount socked away in BTC weekly. PayPal and its Venmo subsidiary charge a flat fee for bitcoin purchases of less than $25 and 1.5% to 2.3% for amounts above that.
