2024 seems to be the year of crypto for PayPal, as the US payments processing giant announced yet another major development in the blockchain space.
PayPal is now allowing its business account holders to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency in all US states except New York. The firm has stated an ambition of increasing the utility of cryptocurrency by expanding access to millions of US merchants.
In the same move, PayPal has also permitted external transfer of cryptocurrency from business accounts to third-party eligible wallets, allowing its business account holders to send and receive crypto tokens to and from external blockchain addresses.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Senior Vice President of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Currencies at PayPal, said: “Since we launched the ability for PayPal and Venmo consumers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency in their wallets, we have learned a lot about how they want to use their cryptocurrency.
“Business owners have increasingly expressed a desire for the same cryptocurrency capabilities available to consumers. We’re excited to meet that demand by delivering this new offering, empowering them to engage with digital currencies effortlessly.”
PayPal’s moves come at a time of resurgence for global crypto and blockchain, with the markets having bounced back significantly after some turmoil in 2022 and 2023. A series of scandals, particularly the collapse of FTX, led to a drop in consumer confidence in crypto, and subsequently a drop in the market’s value.
However, confidence has gradually recovered. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval of Bitcoin ETFs and then Ether ETFs, as well as the Bitcoin halving event earlier this year, have also contributed to a strong recovery. As of the writing of this article, Bitcoin’s value stands at $64,389.10 on CoinDesk.
PayPal has been heavily involved in crypto over the past few years. In 2020, the firm allowed customers to buy, hold and sell crypto from PayPal and Venmo accounts and in 2023, it launched its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD).
This year has seen the firm significantly step up its crypto activity. January saw PayPal make its first ever investment via PYUSD, while in April, it enabled the stablecoin as a funding instrument for its Xoom international money transfer service.
Other developments include PYUSD being made available on the Solana blockchain, whilst PayPal’s links with prominent crypto exchange Crypto.com have been strengthened as well – the exchange integrated PayPal as a payment method for fiat to crypto accounts earlier in the year, having previously named the firm its preferred partner for such transactions.
