For the past twenty years, Paypal has been dominated the sphere of online payments. It currently boasts an incredible 403 million accounts that use the platform. But some of the biggest news in Paypal history came on the 23rd of August when the payment platform announced that it will British clients to buy and sell four major cryptocurrencies.
Naturally, this saw the price of Bitcoin rose to a three-month high after largely stagnating through the summer. It’s undeniably great crypto news, but more importantly: What does Paypal’s adoption of BTC mean for you? In short, it means crypto could become more mainstream, widely accepted, and more valuable. Let’s look at why.
Many are positive about the platform’s adoption of Bitcoin. They see it as a massive push to making BTC and other cryptocurrencies becoming more mainstream. Statistically, North American investors who have bought BTC or other cryptos through Paypal log in twice as much as those who don’t. So this could bring digital currencies into consumer payments even more.
“PayPal’s announcement is yet another example that exposes cryptocurrency deniers as being on the wrong side of history”.
– Nigel Green at financial services firm deVere Group.
Although public interest in the crypto space can still be classed as niche, it is undoubtedly growing. In the UK alone, the number of people owning cryptocurrencies rose by 5% in the space of just two years. The Paypal adoption will give millions of existing users the chance to get involved at the click of a button, removing one of the biggest stumbling blocks to investing in crypto: How to buy it.
So this could significantly expand the number of crypto buyers, but buying BTC and another crypto is only one aspect of investing in digital assets. People also need a place to spend it! Although major corporations like Bitcoin and Tesla have accepted BTC as a form of payment recently, British Paypal users won’t be able to. At least for now.
It’s possible that this could change in the near future, however. Paypal offers its users the ability to use their balances to execute payments at any business or establishment that accepts PayPal. By doing so, they allow thousands of businesses to accept cryptocurrencies without having to make major adjustments or accept any risk as they receive US dollars from PayPal as normal, whilst the customer uses their BTC balance.
So this latest crypto news is another major step towards mass adoption for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But from high energy use, its volatile nature, and complex technology not understood by all, there are still obstacles that the cryptocurrency needs to come. But often seen as a widely trusted protection from inflation, many believe it will do eventually.
