PayPal is expanding its cryptocurrency capabilities for U.S. business customers, allowing them to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies directly from their accounts. It marks a significant step for PayPal, which has already seen increasing interest from consumers using crypto.
According to the release, this reflects the rising demand from merchants who want to merge digital currencies into their operations. The rollout means PayPal will allow U.S. merchants to send cryptocurrencies on-chain to third-party wallets. This functionality will not be made available in New York at first.
According to Jose Fernandez da Ponte, the Senior Vice President of Blockchain at PayPal, implementing blockchain in the business sector is an appropriate response to business owners increasingly interested in getting the same cryptocurrency functions that have already been available to consumers. The platform sees this as an opportunity to further boost the utility of digital currencies across its platform.
This accomplishment is the result of the continuous efforts by PayPal in the cryptocurrency field. Ever since 2020, the platform, with its partner company Venmo, has been providing users with the option of buying, holding, and selling cryptocurrencies. The platform has also launched its stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), which is certain to be a very reliable, fiat-based digital currency for payment.
PayPal’s PYUSD Launches on Solana and Ethereum
PYUSD was added to the Solana blockchain earlier this year and can now also be found on the Ethereum network. This provides users with many more options when working with PayPal. For example, they can use PayPal’s Xoom platform to transfer money internationally efficiently and at no cost when using the PYUSD token.
However, despite this PYUSD has recently suffered a quite sharp fall in market capitalization, especially on the Solana blockchain. Since its highest point in August, PYUSD’s market cap has plummeted by 42% from $663 million to $368 million.
The decline in adoption is attributed to the reduction of the built-in incentives the platform initially offered to increase its adoption. This made the users who were attracted by the offer of as high as 20% interest rates start their withdrawals as these gains became less.
Related Reading | Dogecoin Nears Bullish Breakout As RSI Signals Possible Short-Term Dip