South Africa’s top cryptocurrency exchange, VALR, is flexing its muscles on the global stage with the integration of MoonPay’s fiat on and off-ramps, making it easier than ever for people to buy and sell crypto in more than 180 countries.
The partnership is a big deal for VALR, expanding its support for fiat currencies from just one – the South African rand – to an incredible 34, including both the big ones like U.S. dollars and euros, and also tons of more obscure ones, such as the Kenyan shilling, Nigerian naira, Turkish lira, Brazilian real and Indonesian rupiah.
By adding support for more currencies, it’s clear that VALR is looking to tap into a sizable global audience, far beyond its existing user base, which is primarily African crypto traders. Its users will also gain tons of options in terms of payment methods, with MoonPay able to facilitate fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat transactions via bank transfers, credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Venmo.
VALR is a familiar name to South African crypto-natives, serving as the country’s most popular and visible exchange platform. It enables users to seamlessly trade dozens of cryptocurrencies, with basic spot, futures, and margin trading, plus decentralized finance capabilities such as lending and staking, enabling users to earn passive income through their digital asset holdings. It also provides a way for customers to spend their crypto in the real-world through its VALR Pay service, and features an OTC trading portal for crypto whales and institutional users who need to make large volume trades.
Besides its advanced functionality, VALR also offers rock-solid security, with its funds held in a mix of “hot” and “cold” wallets. This allows it to keep just enough funds ready to support trading activities while storing the bulk of users’ assets offline on physical hardware devices that are geographically dispersed and stored in high-security vaults with 24/7 live video monitoring to protect against theft.
The hot wallets make use of multi-sig technology to prevent unauthorized access to the exchange’s funds. Users can also implement two-factor authentication to protect their own accounts.
With its intuitive user interface and flat 0.75% fee on all trades, VALR provides a simple and affordable trading experience that’s as ideal for new crypto users as it is for more experienced traders.
It has come to dominate South Africa’s crypto scene, amassing more than 1.3 million users, but today’s update shows that it now has much bigger ambitions. MoonPay, as one of the industry’s biggest and most trustworthy on-ramp providers, can help VALR to target a much wider, global audience, helping it to compete against some of the biggest exchanges in the business, such as Binance and Coinbase.
VALR co-founder and Chief Executive Farzam Ehsani was keen to stress the importance of the integration, saying it will make the exchange more accessible to users worldwide.
“This integration empowers our global community with efficient access to cryptocurrencies, aligning with VALR’s vision of building a financial system that reflects the oneness of humanity,” he stated.
Moonpay’s co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright was just as enthusiastic, stressing that his company’s goal is to help ensure everyone has an easy way to access crypto.
“This integration empowers our global community with efficient access to cryptocurrencies, aligning with VALR’s vision of building a financial system that reflects the oneness of humanity,” he stated.
Featured image via Shutterstock.
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