US account holders will be able to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets in the coming weeks, and in the first half of next year PayPal intends to offer these services on the Venmo mobile payment platform and in some other countries.
PayPal has already received an initial, conditional license from the New York State Financial Services Department and will initially only allow the purchase of bitcoins, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin, the statement said. The service will be provided in cooperation with Paxos Trust.
From the beginning of 2021, PayPal users will also be able to pay with cryptocurrencies to 26 million merchants in the PayPal network, the American company announced.
Paypal cryptocurrency payments will be settled in fixed currencies, such as dollars, which means that merchants will not receive payments in virtual money, the company said.
The value of cryptocurrencies fluctuates strongly, which makes them attractive to speculators, but much less so to traders and buyers. Transactions are currently slower and more expensive than in conventional payment systems, according to Reuters.
PayPal has 346 million active accounts worldwide and handles payments totaling $ 222 billion in the second quarter of this year.
“We hope the services will increase the global use of virtual money and we intend to prepare our network for new digital currencies that could be developed by central banks and corporations,” said President and CEO Dan Shulman.
“We work with central banks and think about all forms of digital currencies and the potential role of PayPal,” Schulman said.
Many central banks announced the development of digital versions of domestic currencies in the coming years, and in 2019 Facebook launched the cryptocurrency project Libre. PayPal was one of the founders, but gave up after a few months.
