- PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo would enable customers to withdraw their crypto holdings to third-party platforms soon.
- The new capability would enable users to send Bitcoin not only to one another but also to crypto exchanges.
- The payments firm believes that this move would allow more utility to digital currencies.
PayPal revealed that it would soon make withdrawals of cryptocurrency available to its users to third-party wallets.
PayPal crypto operations to expand significantly
At CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 conference, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, vice president of global business development at PayPal, announced that users would soon be able to transfer the digital assets to off-site wallets.
The payments company allowed users to purchase cryptocurrency with fiat in October 2019. In March this year, PayPal started to enable users to pay with digital currency. PayPal acquired crypto custody firm Curv and even introduced digital asset trading last month through its subsidiary Venmo.
Following criticism for the fact that its services gave users little control over their crypto holdings, PayPal has decided to add a new feature. At the conference, Fernandez da Ponte said:
We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give a choice to our consumers. We want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.
This means that PayPal and Venmo users would be able to send cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to others and services, including crypto exchanges. He added that the company would roll out new developments every two months on average, but it is still unclear when the new functionality will be available.
PayPal relies on Paxos to handle its crypto operations, which suggests that the blockchain infrastructure provider may also deal with the integrations with third-party wallets.
Since the payments firm has been in discussions with central bankers worldwide, Fernandez da Ponte highlighted two priorities central banks might have, including financial stability and universal access. Seeing that there are plenty of ways to achieve stability with digital assets, he added that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could co-exist along with stablecoins. He explained:
Sometimes we position the debate as CBDCs versus stablecoins, but it’s a bit of a fake debate. There is no trade-off. We think they will co-exist.
While PayPal has been rumored to be developing a stablecoin, the VP said, “this is way too early.”
Share
