Short answers, pulled from the story.
Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail met as freshman roommates at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009. They conceived Venmo after helping a friend start a yogurt shop and realizing traditional point-of-sale software was inadequate.
Braintree acquired Venmo in 2012 for $26.2 million. PayPal purchased Braintree in December 2013 for $800 million.
On the 20th of April 2021, rollout began allowing users to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Full userbase access was estimated for May 2021.
In February 2018, FTC settled with Venmo over false representations regarding Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule compliance. The settlement mandated third-party audits every two years for ten years following the agreement.
Venmo publishes every peer-to-peer transaction excluding amounts by default on its public feed. Anyone opening the app sees these publicly shared transactions even without using Venmo.