Please note, this is a summary to the article originally published in Fintech Futures.
- PayPal, which has 346 million customers and accounts for nearly 14% of online payments nationally, has announced that its U.S. customers will be able to buy, sell and hold a selection of cryptocurrencies via its digital wallet in the near future.
- Customers will be able to spend cryptocurrency via their PayPal wallet at all 26 million merchants.
- In 2021, PayPal plans to expand this offering to Venmo, a social payments service, as well as reach foreign customers.
- The expanded offerings is an attempt to prepare the PayPal network for what Dan Schulman, PayPal’s chief executive, views as the inevitable emergence of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
- PayPal now has a conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, the first of its kind, which allows U.S. customers to purchase bitcoin, Ethereum, bitcoin cash and Litecoin