U.S. online payment giant PayPal announced Tuesday that it will accept cryptocurrency payments in the United States, a move that could accelerate the adoption of transactions in bitcoin, ether and other Litecoin.
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| AFP |
A new feature in the PayPal wallet will offer consumers the ability to "pay in crypto," alongside other payment methods, the group announced in a statement.
The service will be "available to millions of online businesses around the world and gradually over the next few months, customers holding cryptocurrency holdings in the U.S. will be able to choose to pay in crypto, seamlessly," PayPal said.
"As the use of digital payments and currencies accelerates, the introduction of +Settle in Crypto+ is consistent with our efforts to support the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency," said Dan Schulman, PayPal's boss.
"Allowing people to pay for purchases in cryptocurrencies from businesses around the world is the next step that will drive the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies," the executive added.
Specifically, transactions will be settled in dollars and converted to the applicable currency at standard PayPal conversion rates.
The "Pay in Crypto" feature will allow consumers to sell cryptocurrency via PayPal and then pay a business for their online purchases in a single, seamless payment stream, the company assures.
PayPal is not the first online payments service to support the use of cryptocurrencies. Square had launched an app in 2018 that allows purchases in bitcoin. But the online payments behemoth, with 377 million accounts, is expected to weigh in on the popularization of cryptocurrencies.
On Monday, credit card issuer Visa announced that it will accept USD Coin, a stablecoin - a cryptocurrency whose price is backed by a currency - to settle transactions on some of its cards.
"Visa will be experimenting with Crypto.com, one of the largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer USDCoin settlement to other partners later this year," it had said in a statement.
USDCoin is based on the network of the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum.
The former, bitcoin, was worth $58,896 on Tuesday, up almost 3 percent.
Source: AFP
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