On Thursday, PayPal said that it will open its emerging cryptocurrency service to all eligible US users.
The company said in a statement: “We are pleased to announce that all eligible PayPal account holders in the United States can now directly purchase, hold and sell cryptocurrencies through PayPal.”
Prior to this, there was news that the demand for this from the PaypPal leadership was high. Paypal CEO Daniel Schulman said on the earnings call earlier this month that “our base is very much looking forward to our offering these features,” and the company’s waiting list is longer than expected.
Gizchina News of the week
A spokesperson mentioned the level of demand in the email. He pointed out that PayPal is also increasing the weekly purchase limit for cryptocurrencies.
The spokesperson said: “Due to the initial needs of our customers, we have also increased the weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit from $10,000 per week to $20,000 per week.”
As a reminder, PayPal launched a cryptocurrency issuance plan at the end of October.
Not Only PayPal
In other words, this move by PayPal shows its confidence in the digital currencies and could encourage everyday users to adopt them. But we should also note that PayPal isn’t the first financial tech company to support cryptocurrencies. Say, even back in 2018, Square’s Cash app added support for Bitcoin.
Anyways, PayPal plans to expand cryptocurrency features to Venmo. It will “select international markets” in the first half of next year. Plus, starting from early 2021, PayPal plans to let its users pay PayPal merchants with cryptocurrency.
As for exchange rates, PayPal will charge $0.50 on transactions up to $24.99, 2.3% on transactions from $25 to $100; 2% on transactions from $100.01 to $200; $1.8% on transactions of $200.01 to $1,000; and 1.5% on transactions over $1,000.
