Today in Crypto: 2 Argentinian Banks Let Customers Buy Crypto; Coinbase CEO Anticipates A Billion Crypto Users in 10 Years

Two Argentinian banks will be the first in their country to allow the use of cryptocurrency, with Banco Galicia, the biggest private bank there, and digital bank Brubank, letting their customers buy crypto, Bloomberg reported Monday (May 2).

Bitcoin, Ether and USDC will traded. This comes amid high customer demand at Banco Galicia, as 60% of respondents to a survey asked for easy crypto access.

In other news, Coinbase has been working on improving privacy of Bitcoin, a company blog said.

The blog said privacy is the power to “selectively reveal oneself to the world,” quoting Eric Hughes in 1993.

The company says it’s working on keeping payment addresses and amounts private between payer and payee.

Furthermore, Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong estimates there could be 1 billion people who have “used or tried” crypto, Bloomberg reported, up from around 200 million today.

He said there would be a big chunk of the world’s GDP taking place in crypto by then.

This comes as crypto markets have been reeling, with Bitcoin hitting a high of around $69,000 in November and falling after that, with Bitcoin sinking around 17% since the year started.

Meanwhile Equinox will allow payment for its luxury health club services in crypto, a report from The New York Post says.

This will make it the first gym in New York City to do so.

Equinox says it wants to meet members where they are “both digitally and physically,” so it will partner with BitPay to do so.

In more crypto news, Bentley University will now be accepting crypto for tuition, a press release said.

That makes it one of the first U.S. universities to offer students a digital option, which the university says shows how it’s committed to working on “early adoption of technologies.”

University President LaBrent Chrite said the school was “proud to embrace this technology that our students are learning about, which will soon transform the global business landscape they’re about to enter.”

Finally, Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, said the company plans to keep offering staking rewards to its card users, after eliminating the program the day before, Coindesk wrote Tuesday.

Community members had become angry about elimination, posting on sites like Reddit and Twitter.

The staking rewards had let card users lock up Crypto.com’s native CRO token for 180 days to earn yields.