Digital wallet and payments platform Zumo has welcomed more than 10,000 new UK app sign-ups in December following a drive to reach new users.

The success of the campaign, which included a referral incentive scheme, bears witness to growing interest in cryptocurrencies as a more secure and smarter way to take control of money.

The Refer & Share scheme rewarded existing and referred customers with 0.02 ethereum which they could immediately buy, sell, send, spend and store alongside other cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies, including pound sterling on the Zumo App.

The start-up’s recent growth follows a successful crowdfunding campaign in August that exceeded its £1 million targets in just four days and an announcement in November that 10,000 users had installed the Zumo App since its launch in June.

Data from the cryptocurrency start-up also shows a doubling in user numbers in just one month (December 2020) and, with an average transaction size of around £600, interest seems to be most prevalent among “everyday” investors. Zumo’s users are UK-based.

Nick Jones, CEO and Founder of Zumo, said: “We’re delighted to have so many people join us on our journey in bringing the benefits of smart money to everyone.

“It’s become increasingly clear that everyday consumers, powerless to the financial system they inhabit, have found in cryptocurrencies a liberated way to hold and trade money securely via private keys on the blockchain.

“The huge popularity of our latest Refer & Share programme is a reflection of how cryptocurrencies have become truly mainstream in 2020, and bears witness to people’s growing interest in unlocking a better way of running our global financial system through self-sovereignty around one’s finances.”

The Refer & Share scheme was originally set to end after the first 5,000 new sign-ups in the UK but was extended due to popular demand and closed yesterday (13 January 2021) at 12:00 noon.

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The company is expected to announce new incentive programmes for new and existing users, with the start-up also releasing a convertible debit card that allows you to spend cryptocurrencies like traditional currencies in the coming months.

Zumo’s latest success follows on from a successful 2020 which saw the company sign a major partnership with fintech scale-up Modulr in June (2020), which would enable it to begin development of a fiat-to-cryptocurrency payments system complete with a sterling (GBP) functionality.

Commenting on the partnership, Zumo founder Nick Jones said at the time that the firm was “delighted” with the collaboration and said both firms have a “vision to solve the problems of access in traditional banking.”