PayPal users in the US can now use the app to trade cryptocurrency

All eligible users can now use PayPal to buy up to $20,000 a week in cryptocurrencies

Payment processing giant PayPal announced the launch of crypto trading and payment features for all eligible customers in the United States through a press release yesterday. The news follows the company’s October announcement on supporting crypto assets.

“We are pleased to announce that all eligible Paypal account holders in the US can now buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly with Paypal”, the company announced.

The updated announcement also means that PayPal has officially ended its waitlist for customers looking to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on the app. Further, the company has also stated that its customers will be able to buy up to $20,000 a week in cryptocurrencies, which is double the originally announced amount of $10,000. Presently, PayPal enables its users to use their accounts to trade and hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

This move comes a month after the company announced that it would enable crypto trading features for PayPal accounts. This sparked a powerful rally, driving Bitcoin’s price past the $13,000 mark. Shortly after the first announcement, PayPal offered a limited rollout of cryptocurrency features which

was followed by yesterday’s full-fledged release. PayPal ultimately plans to make crypto payments available at 26 million merchants globally.

PayPal CEO Daniel Schulman explained the move by stating that the demand for cryptocurrency transactions was heavy and added that PayPal’s target audience was very eager for the payments stalwart to offer crypto trading capabilities. He further added that the move to support crypto was driven by what he sees as an “inevitable” shift toward virtual currencies.

“The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable, bringing with its clear advantages in terms of

financial inclusion and access; efficiency, speed and resilience of the payments system; and the ability for governments to disburse funds to citizens quickly”,  he explained.

PayPal has clarified that it will notify all US customers about the general availability of crypto services in the coming days. “Due to the initial demand from our customers, we’ve also increased our weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit from $10K/week to $20K/week”, the company explained.

Transacting through PayPal and other centralised platforms could be a significant milestone in Bitcoin’s mass adoption strategy. Centralised transactions could alleviate congestion in Bitcoin’s blockchain, enabling it to be used for transactions that require more safety, transparency or immutable proof of ownership.

However, several crypto proponents also criticised the company for not allowing the transfer of digital assets to external wallets. The features currently do not enable users to send crypto assets to other users or use cryptocurrency to pay for goods and services.

PayPal’s crypto services are expected to expand to Venmo and its international customers in the first half of 2021.

Written by Harshini Nag