The past year has been a shock for billions of people around the world. It seemed like no other year in recent memory had such a mix of good news and bad news, hardship and excitement, opportunities and closed doors. 2020 has been hard, but it has also been an important year of change.
With everything going on in the world and in our own personal lives, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with what changes have come to your favorite cryptocurrency projects. That’s why we made this 2020 Year In Review post to bring you up to speed on everything we’ve done for you this year at Metal.
A Growing Marketplace
The Metal Pay Marketplace was built to be the easiest way to access and use cryptocurrency. Not only can you buy and sell crypto directly with an FDIC-insured cash balance from our partner bank, but you can also send cryptocurrency to other Metal Pay users for free. This year, our Marketplace grew to have over 40 cryptocurrencies, and we don’t plan to stop there. Cryptocurrencies added this year include IOTA, ATOM, Tron (TRX), BUSD, ZEN, Decred (DCR), Proton (XPR), TOMO, DAI, Paxos Gold (PAXG), Chainlink (LINK), USDT, PAX, USDC, and HBAR. Did you see one of your favorite cryptocurrencies in that list? If not, let us know on Twitter – we might be able to add it to our queue for you.
Advocating for You
Since cryptocurrency’s inception, it often felt like crypto and the government were at odds with one another. We think this is fixable, which is why we spent the first part of this year introducing the Crypto-Currency Act of 2020 before Congress. This Bill is designed to finally bring regulatory clarity to the cryptocurrency industry, accelerate the mass-adoption of crypto, and make things easier for the everyday crypto holder.
We built on this momentum by creating helpful, how-to guides for finding your elected representatives and contacting them directly to advocate for cryptocurrency. Your voice is powerful, and we wanted to make it easier for you to use that voice to help grow the industry you care about.
Additionally, we put out a helpful guide for receiving your government-issued stimulus check directly into your Metal Pay account. Every complete Metal Pay account comes with an FDIC-insured Cash wallet (like a bank account), its own unique account and routing numbers, and the ability to send and receive cash and crypto directly. We think this is a good way to keep your funds accessible and flexible, and this guide might be helpful in the future if additional rounds of stimulus checks make their way to the American people.
Creating Proton
One of the most monumental updates for our company this year was the launch of the Proton blockchain. Kicked off with an airdrop to MTL and LYNX holders, Proton arrived with a whirlwind and offered a new way to integrate traditional finance with cryptocurrency. We quickly launched the mainnet version of Proton and got to work finalizing integrations for Proton-backed real-estate transactions and so much more. The release of the Proton Web SDK accelerated the growth of this blockchain as developers around the world gained the ability to build their own projects in our ecosystem. The launch of the Proton Wallet offered users like you the ability to swap tokens, stake XPR, earn free cryptocurrency every day, and verify your identity.
Proton has already proven that it can perform, secure, and verify elections; we hope that we’ll get a chance to demonstrate this in real life in the near future. We’ve also shown that Proton can secure and streamline how everyday transactions occur, protecting personal information through the use of push transactions. These features, combined with Proton’s Verified Identities, offer a glimpse into the near future when the Proton blockchain touches every part of our daily lives.
Metal Pay’s Continued Evolution
Our flagship product is Metal Pay: a revolutionary crypto payments app that gives you an FDIC-insured Cash wallet, direct access to a cryptocurrency Marketplace, and the ability to send and receive cash and crypto. This past year has seen numerous updates to the Metal Pay apps for iOS and Android – features such as two-factor authentication, mainnet crypto deposits and withdrawals, instant bank and debit purchases, unlimited crypto-to-crypto trading, faster sign-ups, find-a-friend features, Apple ID sign-in, and enhanced trading charts.
This year also saw the launch of 0% fees for buying BTC, TUD, XPR, and MTL on Metal Pay. We see this as an exciting way to introduce people to cryptocurrency by giving them easier access to Bitcoin, a stablecoin, and our original coins. Metal Pay users can still gain lower trading fees, and even 0% fees for all 40+ cryptocurrencies in our Marketplace, by holding MTL in their accounts.
We aren’t stopping there, either. We recently gained a Money Services Business (MSB) license for Canada, opening up a pathway for us to expand to our neighbors to the north. This, in addition to our plans to expand Metal to the UK, Europe, and other regions, will bring new people into the Metal Pay family in the future. In fact, you can check out more about our roadmap for Metal Pay 3.0 on our blog here.
Record Growth
Metal as a company has grown like never before. With the acquisitions of Lynx and Bloks.io, our employee roster rose to over 40 full-time employees. Our developer teams now have some of the most talented people in the industry to help us build out Metal Pay, Proton, and everything else we’re working on. We also have been expanding our educational initiatives at Metal, building out Metal University, offering quick guides to Bitcoin, and offering how-to’s for every part of our app. Our hope is that Metal becomes one of the world’s best resources for learning about cryptocurrency – no matter if you’re an experienced trader or someone entirely new to this industry.
Final Thoughts
We grew in tremendous ways in 2020, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ll do in 2021. In the coming year, you can expect to see exciting updates to Metal Pay, Metal X, Proton, and so much more. Compared to one year ago, Metal as a company looks completely different than it did before, and in a very good way. We think the change between now and the end of 2021 will be even bigger.
All of our record growth and exciting updates couldn’t have been possible without the support of our users. We often refer to our users as our Metal Family, and that’s a term that we mean – we care about you and want to see you grow and succeed. We believe that cryptocurrency will be necessary for success in the future, which is why we’re doing everything we can to make it easier for you to own and use crypto.
To all of our users who have been with us this far: thank you for an amazing time. We are constantly inspired by the energy and enthusiasm that we see in our community, and we will continue to work hard to build a better way for you to use cryptocurrency.
