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PayPal has just confirmed it’s entering the cryptocurrency market. As per the announcement released yesterday, the American tech giant is going to allow its customers to buy, sell, and store Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
The users of the online payments system in the US will be the first to get to use this option, something which is expected to start within the next couple of weeks. The PayPal cryptocurrency feature is expected to go fully-functional around the world in the first half of 2021.
In addition to Bitcoin, PayPal is planning to add other popular cryptocurrencies to its platform, including Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum.
In a statement released on Wednesday, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman asserted that the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies was inevitable, explaining that the platform is going to enable the users to buy and store cryptos, but also use them for online shopping. PayPal will convert the user’s cryptocurrency to fiat currency automatically every time they decide to make an online payment.
What this practically means is that PayPal users will be able to use cryptos the same way they’ve been using fiat currency. Bitcoin and other digital currencies will become additional funding sources inside the digital wallet.
PayPal’s decision to embrace cryptocurrencies was met with nothing but positive reactions from industry experts. The news has been one of the most discussed topics in the online community, with hundreds of crypto enthusiasts expressing their applauds on Twitter and other social media platforms.
PayPal’s cryptocurrency announcement didn’t only cause a sort of social media party, but it also caused the price of some cryptos to go up. Bitcoin, for example, roared to over $12.8k right after the news became public
Following the PayPal cryptocurrency news, the price of Bitcoin went up by 8%. At one point, it went to as high as $12,817.17, which was the highest BTC price since July 2018. Previously, it’s record price in 2020 was $12,473.
Even before the big PayPal news, the price of the world’s most popular crypto has been going up. This week alone, it went up by 11%, breaking the $12,000 mark on Tuesday.
The sudden price increase surely is a positive sign that Bitcoin might be on the road to get to the value from a few years ago. Sure, not many people believe it is going to reach its all-time record price of $19,783.06 from 2017.
One of the reasons for that is that the cryptocurrency market might get shaken up in November, after the 2020 US Presidential Election. History has thought us that politics can have a big impact on the crypto values, evident from the fact that the Bitcoin price plummeted when President Trump confirmed contracting the COVID-19 a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, regardless of what happens on Election Day, we probably aren’t going to see Bitcoin dropping too much. It seems very likely that it’s not going back under $11k anytime soon (if at all).
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