PayPal Holdings Inc.has announced its plans to allow customers to buy cryptocurrency through their accounts and allow them to use cryptocurrency for merchant payments.
Customers will soon have the ability to buy, hold and sell select cryptocurrencies, initially featuring Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, directly within the PayPal digital wallet.
The payment platform intends to roll out the new changes over the coming weeks, kicking off in the U.S.
PayPal partnered with Paxos Trust Company, a regulated provider of cryptocurrency products and services. It obtained a conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, generally known as the BitLicense.
“The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable, bringing with it 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,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal, said in a press release.
“Our global reach, digital payments expertise, two-sided network, and rigorous security and compliance controls provide us with the opportunity, and the responsibility, to help facilitate the understanding, redemption and interoperability of these new instruments of exchange. We are eager to work with central banks and regulators around the world to offer our support, and to meaningfully contribute to shaping the role that digital currencies will play in the future of global finance and commerce.”
The move may upset many in crypto circles, who feel that the company already monopolizes a significant portion of the digital currency space.
