PayPal Moving into Crypto?
Thoughts over our first coffee of the day on one of Crypto’s big stories.
PayPal will allow cryptocurrency buying, selling, and shopping!
It’s a great headline, isn’t it? We can already imagine some of the ‘clicky-er headlines you’re going to see…
Crypto in the mainstream at last!
Now you can buy everything with crypto!
Mass adoption is tomorrow!
Millions of users overnight!
Again, it all sounds wonderful. But is it as big a story as some will champion? Upon further reading, some core details emerge. Some being hopeful, others being a bit more cautious. We have three thoughts over our first cup of coffee for the day… Hopefully writing caffeine-free won’t cause too many issues…
First, we have the idea that US account holders will be able to “buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets, over the coming weeks”. This is pretty good, no-one likes an announcement about a distant ‘forever away’ event. At the very least we will be able to see this impact soon!
Then we have a commitment “to expand to Venmo and some countries in the first half of 2021”. Awesome, we have the next step. Adding in another service, in this case, Venmo, is another good sign for helping to spread adoption. Venmo after all is person to person and makes total sense for cashless people.
However, one thing that stands out in the details, is the settlement procedure. “Cryptocurrency payments on PayPal will be settled using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, meaning merchants will not receive payments in virtual coins, the company said.”
Ok. So, we can forget about the dreams of seeing millions of merchants now accept and use Crypto instantly. So, we are still using Crypto as an intermediary, but it is actually quite good. The worry of fluctuation will be handled by PayPal. Merchants get the same level of trust in what they are getting and are as stress-free as ever for the whole system.
Sounds great, more exposure, more access, reduced risk for the traditionally minded. A nice blend for all concerned.
From our perspective, it is a great normalizing step, Crypto gains traction and gains more interest. As we know, where the big industry players go the rest normally follow.
Trusted names like, Samsung (who we’ve partnered with) and PayPal open doors and move the conversation away from that tired cliché of “crypto? isn’t that dangerous?”
Trusted, established and recognizable companies help bridge the gap between new and worrying to new and exciting then, to just accepted ways.
Let’s see how this first roll out for US account holders goes.
Further detailed reading
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