Open banking on bitcoin: direct access to major global exchanges from Conio with Mesh

Open banking also expands to the crypto sector. With what could be the first agreement of its kind in Europe, the American Mesh is providing Conio with access to the world's leading digital asset exchange platforms. The US fintech, which recently completed a $22 million Series A round and a $6.5 million strategic investment by PayPal Ventures, is integrated with over 300 global exchanges.

The agreement will allow Conio's 430,000 customers direct connection with ten major platforms - Binance, Bitfinex, Bitsamp, Bybit, Coinbase, Houbi, Kraken, Kucoin, Okx, Robinhood - some already available in the app section, while the others will be activated in the coming weeks. After this initial phase, the service will be expanded to other exchanges, new assets will be involved, and additional features will be added that will allow for integrated management of one's accounts on the various platforms, under an arrangement that is a true Open Banking for Bitcoin and digital assets.

With this operation, the Italian fintech company owned by Poste Italiane and Banca Generali, which offers a wallet for the custody of bitcoins and digital assets, aims to simplify the classic bitcoin transfer process by eliminating friction. This involves removing obstacles and difficulties such as the use of QR codes, long and complex copy-and-paste address operations, and the need for test transfers, while also reducing the risk of errors that in the crypto world become unrecoverable.

The agreement also aims to further promote the adoption of secure custody solutions such as Conio's, which uses a system of three private keys, only two of which are needed to authorise transactions, allowing assets to be recovered even if one of the private keys becomes unavailable.

According to industry research conducted in Europe by Adan in collaboration with Kpmg to take stock of digital asset adoption in Europe and including a sample of more than 1,000 Italians, 19% of Italians have already purchased cryptocurrencies and 11% are active or inactive crypto asset holders. Of these, 66% use the most common exchanges to store bitcoin and their digital assets, instead of a personal wallet.