In late fall of 2020, U.S. payments behemoth Paypal announced that it plans to allow its U.S. customers to use Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin for purchases with over 26 million merchants around the world.
PayPal allows U.S. clients to use crypto for purchasing
PayPal users are also allowed to buy and sell crypto but only on the company's network without withdrawing coins or holding private keys. Purchases and sales have been enabled by the Venmo app, owned by PayPal.
The former has millions of user-millennials, who are statistically into crypto.
Paypal embracing cryptocurrencies was taken by the crypto community as another major milestone toward global crypto adoption.
However, many were unhappy that Bitcoin and other cryptos can be bought/sold/stored only within the company's ecosystem.
Alex DovbnyaOver 65 percent of PayPal clients are using crypto on the network
By December 2020, data collected by Mizuho Securities USA stated that, already, 65 percent of Paypal's user base of over 347 million people globally has been using Bitcoin to make purchases.
That was not the only step PayPal took toward adopting cryptocurrencies for its global business. It first eyed purchasing crypto custodial service BitGo. However, it ultimately gave up on that idea and bought crypto startup Curv instead. The purchase was announced on March 8.
Alex Dovbnya
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov