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PayPal rolling out cryptocurrency trading and spending options

by Mark Tyson on 22 October 2020, 10:11

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Online payments giant PayPal has decided to cosy up to cryptocurrency users and providers. To get its operation up and running PayPal had to obtain a conditional 'Bitlicense' from the New York State Department of Financial Services - and is the first company ever to do so. The cryptocurrency services PayPal will offer include; the storage of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash "directly within the PayPal digital wallet," and the purchasing of goods and services from any of the 26 million sellers which accept PayPal.

PayPal's crypto integration will make it one of the largest US companies to provide these virtual currencies, notes Reuters. Making these changes now is expected to accelerate the use of virtual coins for purchasing goods and services and it helps PayPal prepare the ground for digital currencies that central banks and other big companies may develop. Venmo, PayPal's mobile peer-to-peer payment service, will make use of the new cryptocurrency back end sometime in H1 2021.

Cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile, and a technology author talking to the BBC about this news likened cryptocurrency investors to those who gamble on 'penny stocks'. David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain, said he didn't understand the motive behind PayPal's cryptocurrency trading and spending enablement plans. "I'm at a loss as to who the market is for PayPal as a crypto-exchange," Gerard commented. In essence Gerard was warning ordinary folk not to invest or save large amounts of cash in cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency market has responded positively to this news. The price of one BTC spiked as much as 8 per cent immediately after PayPal's announcement, for example. At the time of writing the price has dropped back a little to 1BTC = GBP£9,785 or USD$12,852.

Let us hope surging cryptocurrencies don't impact the supplies of any shiny new GPUs.

PayPal Cryptocurrency buying options will be rolling out in the US over the next few weeks but using Crypto to buy goods and services via PayPal won't go live until "early 2021". I don't have any precise info on the timetable for these PayPal services going live outside of the US, only that PayPal plans to expand the service geographically in H1 2021.

HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Posted by Tabbykatze - Thu 22 Oct 2020 10:28
Hmm, would I trust Paypal with even more stuff? Maybe

Would I trust them more than the digital wallet businesses out there considering how many have either been breached or “run off with the money”? Yes, sadly.
Posted by Kato-2 - Thu 22 Oct 2020 11:47
Also one of the majors points of cyprtocurreny is to be free from control.

Paypal is known to bar payment services for political reasons so the ability to use crpto seems dubious unless there has been a major change of heart at the company and this is there way out of submitting to the woke militant.

That Bitlicense from new York sounds very much like government control of who gets to use it.
Posted by Gentle Viking - Thu 22 Oct 2020 11:58
“Also one of the majors points of cryptocurrency is to be free from control.”

Yes but the people that call them self your masters, they can still shut down BC like “ snaps finger”
SO ! there are no freedom in cryptocurrency.
Posted by MaddogPepper - Thu 22 Oct 2020 12:47
What a surprise the BBC ridicule cryptocurrency with their ignorance and political agenda. I tell you what if you think cryptocurrency is bad and full of bad actors and scammers you should check out our institutional banking system, you know the ones that have just been exposed for laundering more than $1 trillion of dirty money, the ones who brought the world to its knees in 2008 because of shady practices wrapping bad debt up and selling it as a cast iron investment, the ones who are now pumping so much money into the system that we will be paying for it through inflation for decades to come and the stock market is just as bad. The amount of times I hear people say “yeah but cryptocurrency isn't backed by a physical asset” - these people still think the gold standard exists and the pound is backed up by assets somewhere in a giant vault - it isn't, the Bank of England print more of it whenever they feel like it. Finally people are waking up to how governments and central banks have been manipulating peoples lives for decades, and guess what - they don't like it, so am I surprised to see the BBC calling them “penny stocks” and a scam - not at all. I would recommend doing your own independent research on the things I have mentioned and do it with an open mind, then decide whether this is good news or bad news.
Posted by chj - Thu 22 Oct 2020 13:09
Tabbykatze
Hmm, would I trust Paypal with even more stuff? Maybe

Would I trust them more than the digital wallet businesses out there considering how many have either been breached or “run off with the money”? Yes, sadly.

Since the EUs rules for anti money laundering now require coin exchanges to identify customers who buy bitcoin (usually photo ID), I'd rather use PayPal too.

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