Starling Bank is now blocking cryptocurrency transactions.
The UK-based digital bank has sent its customers a text message which reads: “We consider crypto activity to be high risk.
“We’ve taken the decision to prevent all card payments to crypto merchants and to implement further restrictions on outgoing and incoming transfers.”
A spokesperson said: “Starling has had restrictions of varying degrees on crypto transactions for some time, like many other banks. We recently tightened restrictions on inbound and outbound transactions by card and bank transfer.
“Today’s message was to make sure that customers who have made such transactions in the past, but not recently, are aware of this.
“The innovative technology, and thinking, behind cryptocurrencies have great potential advantages, however, right now, they are high risk and heavily used for criminal purposes and, as such, we no longer support them.”
Lloyds, Barclays, RBS and Santander are among the banks to take measures against crypto, including blocks on credit card payments and transactions with exchanges.
Cryptocurrency shorts
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Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the 21,800 coins is at $822 billion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 5.1% increase in the last 24 hours.
For round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments, click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.