The mobile payment service Venmo, owned by PayPal, has added a direct buy and sell feature for four cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, LTC and BCH.
Over the next few weeks, more than 70 million Venmo users will be able to purchase, store and sell these cryptoassets through the service’s app. The minimum purchase amount for cryptocurrencies is $ 1. To do this, customers will be able to use money from their Venmo balance linked to their bank account or debit card. This opportunity will also be open to PayPal users. The addition of cryptocurrencies to Venmo is carried out in partnership with the licensed firm Paxos Trust, with which the payment giant PayPal has previously begun to cooperate.
PayPal already has a Bitlicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to legally provide cryptocurrency services to residents of the state, and has partnered with licensed firms to effectively develop its services.
After analyzing user behavior in 2020, Venmo experts found that more than 30% of customers have already started buying cryptocurrencies. 20% of people started shopping through this service during the pandemic. The researchers concluded that the coronavirus and the accompanying economic crisis has accelerated the transition to digital services, awakening PayPal’s interest in experimenting with new financial technologies even more.
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said the company intends to continue to support the use of cryptocurrencies for daily transactions. Shulman supports an inclusive cryptocurrency economy, in which digital assets can be used by all segments of the population, regardless of their level of income. As a reminder, in October 2020, PayPal added cryptocurrency support for US users. Shulman said that after implementing this initiative, he began to view cryptocurrencies as part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce the cost of payments.
However, Schulman said he was not going to follow the example of Tesla and Square, which invested in bitcoin. The founder of PayPal intends to use the company’s budget for acquisitions of companies in the industry. One of these acquisitions was the purchase of the Israeli cryptocurrency startup Curv. In addition, PayPal’s cryptocurrency arm is exploring the potential of various blockchains, including Ethereum, to improve payment efficiency. Shulman added that PayPal does not intend to compete with cryptocurrency exchanges. On the contrary, the company is open to collaborating with stakeholders to take advantage of the opportunities offered by cryptocurrencies.
