Giant online payment platform Paypal, has announced they will begin to accept cryptocurrency as a a medium of exchange amongst its millions of global merchants, the firms CEO and president stated on Tuesday ahead of its formal announcement.
News broke of PayPals rumoured decision to utilise cryptocurrency payments early on March 30. Later that day, the firms president Dan Schulman, confirmed to Reuters that the rumours were correct and stated an official announcement was about to be made.
The new system is intended to provide a crypto checkout service where consumers can use their cryptoassets in their wallets to pay for products and services at authorised vendors. According to reports, the system would empower merchants to equally transfer funds from cryptocurrencies to fiat currencies after coins are subjected to a fast transfer at the time of sale.
The new payment protocol is anticipated to become available for all four of PayPal’s supported Cryptocurrencies which consists of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Customers who choose to pay with cryptocurrencies are set to incur no transaction fees for purchases, it is worth noting only one cryptocurrency can be used for each transaction.
PayPal have been vocalising their interest in introducing cryptocurrencies to their services with reports dating back to October 2020. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz referred to the news as “the shot heard around the world” in regards to how Wall Street would interpret the news. PayPal have continued to pursue avenues into the industry in early March, when it acquired digital assets security firm Curv in an agreement said to be worth approximately $200 million.
The PayPal story comes just one day after Visa stated that it would trial a new payment protocol through stablecoins that use the Ethereum blockchain. The trial will see participating merchants agree to settle customers fiat transactions using the USDC stablecoin.
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