PayPal is expected to be the next mainstream payments company to offer bitcoin and cryptocurrency support for its over 320 million users. Could this happen by year-end?
Twitter-owned-Square began the trend for mainstream companies to offer bitcoin support with its cashapp in 2018. However, this was taken to the next level just last week, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a $50 million investment of the company’s funds directly into bitcoin.
Will PayPal support bitcoin sooner rather than later?
Back in June, speculation on PayPal and Venmo possibly entering into the crypto space was also well underway, with a source familiar with the matter telling crypto media outlets about the rumoured plans.
Today this day, it remains unclear which cryptocurrencies will be supported, but at the time the timeline for rolling out cyrpto support was three-months. It’s now October and it appears that PayPal’s official announcement is now overdue.
According to Ari Paul, the co-founder of Blocktower Capital, although Square’s support for Bitcoin is “cool”, PayPal’s adoption of Bitcoin could be very positive considering the company has ten times the users and clients Square handles.
“Square news is cool, but PayPal has 10x the users. I think we will see Paypal announce support for Bitcoin by the year end.”
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Bitcoin has been expanding its remit all over the world especially during recent years as publicly traded companies begin to hold bitcoin while others directly support liquidity for the top cyrptocurrency.
This rapid expansion had the effect of increasing on-chain activity, but more importantly – bitcoin’s hashrate – surpassing even the network activity seen in 2017 and the peak of the bull cycle. And bitcoin’s proliferation didn’t happen in a vacuum either, with more exchanges such as Phemex increasing liquidity and expanding operations across the board.
From rumour to fact?
Should PayPal follow in the footsteps of MicroStrategy and Square, this could be another catalyst to spur growth towards the next paradigm – which most people in the space know will come eventually.
While it’s arguable that bitcoin does not need institutions to advance, per Adam Back’s comments in June, it’s hard to deny the immediate effect giant corporations such as PayPal might have on bitcoin’s widespread acceptance. In such a scenario, it’s likely that crypto platforms like Ethereum and Cardano as well as old-school altcoins like Litecoin and Monero might also benefit from a reinvigorated market.
Either way, PayPal’s 3-month timeline is at its end, so if the rumour is set to become a fact – now is the time.
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