Bitcoin Wallet App Abra Adds Support For Ethereum

Bitcoin wallet app Abra is adding support for ethereum, the startup announced today.

The move to include the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in its list of currencies was unveiled at CoinDesk's Consensus: Invest event in New York. According to founder and former Netscape director Bill Barhydt, the ethereum option will be available within the week, alongside bitcoin and dozens of government-issued currencies.

In addition to ethereum, Abra is also beefing up its wallet app's storage capabilities, allowing users to hold multiple currencies at a given time.

As Barhydt explained:

"You can store access to ethereum and store three different wallets at the same time, so dollars, bitcoin and ethereum all at the same time. And we believe this is the first time this has all been possible in a non-custodial wallet."

The wallet app maker – which came out of stealth mode in 2015 and raised a $12 million Series A funding round that fall – is also moving to add support for multi-signature transactions as well.

Abra currently uses a single signature model, by which a user signs transactions with their associated private key. By using a "two-of-two" multi-sig wallet, both the user and the app would have to greenlight on any transactions before they are broadcast.

Later next year, Abra will expand on this feature, adding a "two-of-three" model backed by a third-party oracle service that can sign in the place of either the user or Abra itself.

"It really is directly responding to consumer requests for more and better things in the Abra app, and we're excited to give them what they want," he told CoinDesk.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Abra.

Image courtesy of Abra

This article and its headline have been updated for clarity.