Anonymous sources allegedly from or close to Paypal’s cryptocurrency strategy have leaked to the media that Paypal and Venmo are close to integrating cryptocurrency into the world’s top online payment companies.
“PayPal’s entry into the market moves bitcoin another step closer to mainstream acceptance. While the first foray is to simply allow the purchase and sale of bitcoin, it sets the groundwork for integration into PayPal’s general suite of payment services. I anticipate that, over time, this will provide what bitcoin desperately needs – some genuine use cases over and above the “store of value” narrative,” stated CEO of Panxora Gavin Smith.
Paypal and Venmo have over 330 million active users and the platform facilitates the receipt of money in over 100 currencies,
“My understanding is that they are going to allow buys and sells of crypto directly from PayPal and Venmo,” a well-placed industry source told Ian Allison at CoinDesk. “They are going to have some sort of a built-in wallet functionality so you can store it there.”
The industry source added they expected PayPal:
“…would be working with multiple exchanges to source liquidity.”
PayPal declined to comment to Blockchain News on the plans.
In 2019, Paypal joined the Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra but soon dropped out after CEO Mark Zuckerberg started taking heat from the US Congress and other politicians.
Other financial services including cryptocurrency integration from the startup side include Revolut and Cashaa in the UK. Revolut is a mobile bank that added cryptocurrency as a service and Cashaa, originally founded for remittance payments globally, shifted to a pure cryptocurrency-led bank in 2018. Wirex Bank is also well known in the blockchain community as a crypto-centric institution.
Also published on Medium.
Kastelein has an Honorary Ph.D. and is Chair Professor of Blockchain at China’s first blockchain University in Nanchang at the Jiangxi Ahead Institute software and Technology. He has over a half a decade experience judging and rewarding some 1000+ innovation projects as an EU expert for the European Commission’s SME Instrument programme as a startup assessor and as a startup judge for the UK government’s Innovate UK division. Kastelein has spoken (keynotes & panels) on Blockchain technology at over 50 events in 30+ cities.
