PayPal, the electronic payments multinational, has published an update to confirm the start of its cryptocurrency purchase, sale and storage services through its platform.
As reported in this medium, Paypal will activate new services to allow commercial operations in cryptocurrencies, through its digital platform. And although these services would be available at the beginning of next year, the electronic payments giant published a update recent where it informs the community in general that cryptocurrency purchase, sale and storage operations are now available for US customers.
“We are pleased to announce that all eligible PayPal account holders in the US can now buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly with PayPal.”
With the activation of these services, US users can now use this platform to acquire cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) y Litecoin (LTC); although, as the statement points out, the services are available to “eligible” users of the platform. Paypal was managing a waiting list of customers interested in using these services, and will now notify via email and with an automatic notification in the app, those who are “authorized” to use them. Likewise, the company invited account holders to download the application and check the availability of its new services.
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$20 thousand dollars weekly
When Paypal informed about its new services, it indicated that its clients would have a limit of operations of 10 thousand dollars per week. Nevertheless, Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, indicates that there is a high demand for these services and that the community is eager to use PayPal's new capabilities. Likewise, a company spokesperson reported that due to this high demand, PayPal has decided to increase the transaction limit to $20 per week, double the amount initially estimated.
“Due to initial demand from our customers, we have also increased our weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit from $10k per week to $20k per week.”
Without a doubt, great news for those who can already start using these services. However, there are those who question PayPal's position on cryptocurrencies, pointing out that the company is “profiting” from the Bitcoin name without actually adopting the cryptocurrency.
A half-hearted adoption?
This view follows PayPal's previous statements that consumers “will be able to instantly convert their selected cryptocurrency balance to fiat currency,” as a measure to avoid the typical volatility and “incremental fees” of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. .
“PayPal merchants will have no additional integrations or fees, as all transactions will be settled in fiat currency at their current PayPal rates.”
Thus, for the moment it seems that Paypal will not allow the deposit or withdrawal of Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, but rather the operations will be carried out in the fiat equivalent of the cryptocurrencies within the platform. That is, users will be able to store their cryptocurrencies in the Paypal app, but when depositing, withdrawing or transferring, the operations will be carried out in fiat.
Rates for new services
The cryptocurrency and digital asset ecosystem is known for its fairly cheap transaction commission fees, compared to conventional means like Paypal. Even in Bitcoin, gigantic transactions have been made, worth several billion dollars with quite tiny commission fees. A recent example of this is a transaction of 88.857 BTC, worth $1,45 billion based on the current price of the cryptocurrency, with a commission fee of just 0,00027847 BTC, equivalent to less than 50 cents.
Now, PayPal's commission rates in its cryptocurrency services and in its conventional services are still high compared to the alternative offered by cryptocurrencies directly from their blockchains. For example, the PayPal website indicates a commission of up to 5,4% + $0,30 for any monetary transaction made, plus an additional cost of up to 3,5% for any currency conversion when receiving payments. On the other hand, the details of the commissions established by the company are:
$0,50 USD on transactions worth up to $24,99 USD; 2,3% on transactions of value from $25,00 USD to $100,00 USD; 2% on transactions of value from $100,01 USD to $200,00 USD; 1,8% on transactions of value from $200,01 USD to $1.000 USD; and 1,5% on transactions worth more than $1.000 USD.
Despite this, the feeling that PayPal's cryptocurrency services are a point in favor of Bitcoin adoption continues to predominate in the community, thanks to the large client base that the company manages, and which can expose Bitcoin to millions of users.
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