PayPal shows eagerness to get into the crypto sphere

2020 was a great year for cryptocurrencies and DeFi niches. Not only did they have a massive bull run, but many institutions also hopped into this industry that further raised their prices, and made cryptocurrencies go mainstream.

It is worth noticing that PayPal has also announced its support for cryptocurrencies and the US-based users can now sell, buy and HODL different coins. Please be advised that apart from just offering this facility, the payment-giant is also providing means for their users to learn about cryptocurrencies, track prices and do a lot of different stuff without even leaving the app. Whether they build customized solutions or partner with 3rd party data providers is yet to be seen.

Moreover, the company has also announced to facilitate crypto-payments from 2021. It means that users would have a crypto wallet on PayPal and they can pay all the merchants on the PayPal network (i.e. 26 million users around the globe) right from their native accounts. The way it would work in real-time is quite simple, however, you should know about it as an end–user. Basically, whenever you select a cryptocurrency as the primary funding source and make a payment (whether on a PoS or online), the cryptocurrency will be converted to fiat at the given exchange rate. Therefore, if you do not have, let’s say, USD in your account, but you want to pay at a Louis Vuitton outlet in New York, you can still make the payment via cryptocurrency, and Louis Vuitton would receive the payment in fiat.

It should be noted that this decision by PayPal was long–awaited by the crypto community and apart from the fact that it provides great feasibility to the users, this decision has also increased the demand for Bitcoin and Ethereum, thus causing a spike in their values as well.

One of the best perks is that they are not charging an extra charging fee for crypto transfers and you do not even get charged for holding cryptocurrencies for as long as you want.

Although PayPal is eager to entertain more currencies in the future, they are only offering the following ones for now:

Bitcoin

Ethereum

Litecoin

Bitcoin Cash

Conclusion

While it is indeed a great move and good news for the crypto users, please be advised that PayPal is not the only company that has entered into this niche. About 2 years ago, Square also started dealing with cryptocurrencies and in the very first year, the company saw up to 600% growth in its revenue. This is quite a decent indicator that the public demand for cryptocurrencies is growing and PayPal has taken the right decision at the right time.

It is worth noticing that although this service is available to the US residents only, PayPal has shown keenness to engage with other governments in order to comply with their jurisdictions and extend the service.