Fintech giant PayPal plans to sell bitcoin and cryptocurrency directly to its 325 million users. This is reported by at least three different people who are familiar with the status quo at PayPal.
PayPal can currently be used as an alternative means of payment for withdrawing fiat currencies such as the euro or the USD from exchanges such as Coinbase. However, it may soon be possible to buy Bitcoin directly from your account via PayPal .
Bitcoin soon on PayPal?
„As far as I know, they will allow crypto to be bought and sold directly through PayPal and Venmo,“ a well-recognized industry insider told in a recent interview.
They’ll have some sort of wallet functionality built in so you can keep it there, continues the secret source.
It is unclear which or how many cryptocurrencies will be available. The secret informant states that PayPal “will work with several exchanges to raise liquidity”.
A second source confirmed that PayPal intends to offer the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies and said the service could be integrated „in the next three months, maybe sooner“. PayPal has not yet commented on these alleged rumors.
Existing cooperation with crypto exchanges
The San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase and the Luxembourg-based exchange Bitstamp were named as likely partners by the sources. Both Coinbase and Bitstamp declined to comment.
It’s worth noting that PayPal has had a longstanding relationship with Coinbase that began in 2016. In 2018, Coinbase made instant fiat withdrawals available to PayPal for US customers. Last year, European Coinbase users were able to withdraw to their PayPal accounts, followed by users in Canada.
Square, the payment service launched by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, introduced Bitcoin purchases in its Cash app in mid-2018. According to official reports, the Cash app has already earned more than $ 306 million from Bitcoin .
The London-based company Revolut, which began to buy cryptocurrencies directly after a partnership with Bitstamp in 2017, was able to raise USD 500 million in a new financing round in February. The platform was valued at $ 5.5 billion. Cryptocurrencies are seen as a catalyst to attract new customers and enter new markets.
PayPal is hiring blockchain experts
Around the beginning of 2020, PayPal posted vacancies to build its new Blockchain Research Group. PayPal has eight engineering positions: four in San Jose and four in Singapore.
After PayPal briefly dealt with the Facebook-led Libra project last year, the focus is now on expanding its own expertise in digital payments, according to one of the sources who commented on the matter.
In an interview earlier this year, Sri Shivananda, PayPal’s chief technology officer, said the company wanted its own
Perspective and point of view on [blockchain] technology itself to see how it can help us contribute to the concept of creating an open digital payments platform that can serve everyone.
Shivananda goes on to say that for legal reasons he is not allowed to disclose any further information: “ We firmly believe in the potential of blockchain technology. The digitization of the currency is only a question of when, not whether, ” summarizes Shivananda.