The app is safe. No malicious content found. App permission won't also do harm. Just don't auto-update it.
However, there are lots of related apps like this so OP will surely have difficulty gathering users.
Also, news articles that are shown to you are based on your portfolio, so if you add Ethereum to your portfolio, you will see more Ethereum news then Bitcoin, etc.
Maybe that was a unique feature. But you know, Ethereum and other altcoins don't have that buzzing in the news regularly.
Google does not check for viruses.
There is mate. Playstore does have a Google Play protect that scans the application's internal stuff before allowing them to download and install on the device. However, as I said above, always make sure that auto-update feature in Playstore should be turn off although it was already OFF by default.