BRD Partners With Wyre to Build Bank Transfer Wallet Feature

BRD, a mobile wallet company, announced today that US customers are now able to purchase bitcoin, ethereum, and Dai using bank transfers. This feature is supported through a partnership with Wyre, a blockchain payments provider, and over 1,700 US banks. Company representative Spencer Chen expects this partnership and product launch to close the divide between wallets and exchanges, and allow the company to become a player in the market for cryptocurrency entry. “We’re more competitive with Coinbase than ever,” he told CoinDesk. The announcement comes amid a period of growth for the wallet provider, which completed a $15 million round of series B funding in 2018. Since the start of 2019, BRD saw a doubling of transactions performed on its platform, a tripling of the number of existing, free users to premium customers, and the expansion to 170 countries. BRD showed early promise in the field. In 2017, it received $32 million in an ICO, among the top 40 launches at the time. The upstart also saw early backing by SBI Holdings, a well-regarded Japanese venture capital fund. Despite BRD’s impressive funding line, the company still has negative cash flow.