PayPal plans to allow users to send bitcoin to third party wallets

 

Paypal caused a stir in the crypto market last year, announcing that millions of its users could buy and sell bitcoin.

Then PayPal announced the addition of Bitcoin and some cryptocurrencies to its Venmo service.

The move by Paypal is seen as a major step in the transformation of cryptocurrencies into the mainstream, but the services provided by Paypal have also raised some criticism.

Specifically, the skeptics said that this was not real bitcoin because PayPal users could only buy or sell it within the app, not send it to others.

Now, it appears that Paypal is in the process of addressing this issue.

Speaking at Consensus on Wednesday afternoon, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Head of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency at PayPal, said:

The company will add support for third-party transfers, which means that PayPal and Venmo users will be able to send bitcoins not only to PayPal users but also towards platforms, such as Coinbase and offshore crypto wallets as well.

Fernandez da Ponte added:

We want to make the service as open as possible, and we want to give our clients a choice.

PayPal wants customers to bring their cryptocurrency to us, so they can use it to trade, and we want them to be able to take the cryptocurrency they have purchased with us and transport it to the destination of their choice.

We understand that there is more benefit to these cryptocurrencies if they can be transferred, so we are definitely exploring how we can allow people to transfer crypto to and from their PayPal addresses.

 However, Da Ponte refused to provide further details about when specifically PayPal would open registration for the new service, or how it would handle the blockchain transactions that would be created when users send and receive cryptocurrencies.

Currently, PayPal relies on Paxos to handle its cryptocurrency transactions and, more broadly, relies on a variety of other partners to help support its global financial operations.

This indicates that the company may also rely on "Paxos" or another Crypto company to handle mergers with third-party wallets, but it can also build the same infrastructure with the help of "Curv," a security firm that Paypal acquired earlier this year. 

In recent months, Paypal CEO Dan Shulman has considered cryptocurrencies and blockchain an essential part of their business.

In a recent interview, Schulman told that he sees new technologies as having tremendous potential to lower the cost of transferring money, especially in the developing world, and expand access to financial services in general.

It is also rumored that “Paypal” is developing a stable currency, but it is purely a rumor, and it has not been proven correct or any indication of it until now.

In an interview on Wednesday, Fernandez da Ponte declined to elaborate but did not deny the stable coin rumor.