Deal has ended, view more Venmo deals by clicking here.
Update 9/15/21: More people targeted. Valid until September 30th, 2021.
The Offer
No direct link to offer, sent out via e-mail. Subject line is ‘Earn $25, just for buying crypto on Venmo’
- Venmo is offering $25 when you purchase $25+ in cryptocurrency by August 31, 2021
The Fine Print
- $25 will be deposited into your account by September 15, 2021
Our Verdict
Basically just a free $25 if targeted. Looks like some people are eligible for the same deal but only for $20.
Hat tip to Wesley B
No option to withdraw the crypto?
I bought $26 worth crypto. The fee added was $0.60. If you do not keep cash in Venmo balance like me, Venmo gives an option to select a tied checking account when buying.
Just received $25 venmo cash
ah so in Venmo deposit takes 3-5 business days before you can trade? Not like Coinbase, Blockfi etc which give instant trade
This is a no brainer. If you don’t like the transaction fees, just buy $25 worth of ETH and hold for a year. Great chance to 5x your money even without the bonus. Once the merge happens next year Ethereum will go from about 4% inflation to next to nothing. When Bitcoin issuance drops by 50% (as it does every 4 years), the price pumps by many multiples. What’s ETH going to do when issuance drops by 90%??? It will make BTC look anemic by comparison.
I got the same for PayPal.
Not financial or tax advice but crypto trades are typically taxed with capital gains/losses. For instance, if you buy $24 worth of crypto after fees for $25 then sell for $23, typically you would report your cost-basis as $25 and sell price $23, therefore capital loss of $2. So in theory you would get a little bit of a write-off if you just immediately buy/sell and the price does not appreciate. The main issue that I see with this Venmo deal compared to Paypal is they are then giving you $25 in cash. In theory this would either need to be reported as income or you consider it a “rebate” (although then that would mean that you would deduct it from your cost-basis for the crypto and that would make your cost-basis negative after fees). My understand with the Paypal deal is that you get a discount applied to a future paypal purchase (not funds deposited in your paypal account), so in theory that would be a discount/rebate on a future purchase and not run into the same issue as getting a cash deposit. Again, not financial or tax advice, just thinking through it since these places collect your SSN.
I think Venmo is being very deceptive with this offer. I took the bait and purchased $50 of Ethereum from them. I had my Coinbase window open as well to compare crypto market prices. Venmo market prices were a few dollars higher than Coinbase’s but I thought “$25 free crypto” was worth the discrepancy. At the time of my purchase, Ethereum was selling at around $3,525 per token. When I clicked “buy”, the price “suddenly” jumped to $3,550, and then dropped back just as quickly…. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out I just paid for the $25 “Reward” Venmo is going to give me.
Verdict: Net return is not $25; you have to consider the high fees to buy and sell crypto. 2.3% x2 fee for buy/sell crypto at $25-100. 1.8%x2 for $200.01-1000, and 1.5%x2 for $1000.01+. High fee, and does not include any spread they might factor in the buy,sell price.:(
I made a profit on the buy/sell on top of the $25. So, at least for me, my net return was $25.26!
Got targeted the first time. Payed out yesterday