I know that no one with any awareness would buy bitcoin from a bank, but newbies can do it, and from what we can see, those who buy from this bank will not be able to withdraw it.
“The issue of not being able to withdraw crypto assets is an evolution,” said Antunes. “Crypto was used for money laundering and financing crime. They used this intermediation of crypto assets because it was very easy: you could buy an asset and transfer it from anywhere and in any way, 24/7. Organized crime realized this and started using crypto for this purpose. That’s why a lot of people back then said that ‘crypto is for criminals, crypto is dangerous’.”
In December of last year, Itaú allowed Bitcoin and Ethereum trading to all customers on its app, aiming to “provide an investment alternative”. Last week, the bank expanded the cryptocurrencies offered to include USDC, Solana (SOL) and XRP.
When it launched the cryptocurrency offering, the bank said it was already testing and expected to release the “wallet in” service by 2025, which allows customers to transfer cryptocurrencies from their external wallet to the bank.
The “wallet out” service, which allows sending cryptocurrencies from the bank to an external wallet, was still in the evaluation phase. However, today’s speech by the executive suggests that this service is unlikely to arrive any time soon.
It's more of a joke than news.