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For me this is bitter-sweet as I've watched Paypal for years try kill any blockchain startup that had anything to do with using their shitty payment processor. "Absolutely NO cryptocurrencies! Unless of course it's us monopolizing it! Then it's okay!" Facebook pulled the same shit banning crypto ads and then shilling their crapcoin. Samsung did it by stalling anyone working on blockchain tech designed to run on their devices until they could offer their own solution. Google is doing the same with search ads until it can shill their centralized cloud solutions as a scalability option and whatever other evil shit they have in the pipeline. These companies are the anti-thesis to the blockchain. Paypal's crappiness is probably a leading reason 'Satoshi' invented Bitcoin.
PayPal couldn't act as an on-ramp for anything crypto because PayPal is run on soft money (reversible credit card transactions or potentially hacked bank accounts).

Allowing conversion of soft money to hard money (a btc with 6 onchain confirmations) means every criminal will use you as an on-ramp to convert their hack cc details and bank accounts into immutable hard money.

Thanks to this I've found building a product in the cryptocurrency market has been the most challenging for applying typical online marketing strategies - I've exhausted most avenues of advertisement - basically the only tools left are the more expensive sponsorship arrangements as every advertising platform will instantly reject your content.

I can appreciate why the pendulum swung hard against ads - it's incredibly hard to differentiate between real and fake ICOs, and we're seeing that again with the defi craze at the moment. It's just made it so much more expensive as an emerging company to try to sell services in this market even when you _aren't_ trying to sell a coin.

While I agree big tech is the antithesis of the blockchain "spirit", I doubt they chose to block would-be competitors in anticipation of their own offering. The feeling I get is that everyone is/was tiptoeing around the whole matter due to compliance worries, until there was enough regulatory confidence to make a move. There's also the matter of how exactly Paypal is going to deal in crypto: the Revolut (and others?) model where you own only whatever crypto you buy on their platform, or the real deal where you can also deposit/withdraw cryptocurrencies.

Either way, it's a step that highlights regulatory progress being made. It may not be the blockchain spirit, but alas that may not be what ultimately prevails.

This is coming a bit too strong... I was there from the beginning. PayPal and Credit Cards did not ban bitcoin in the early days, but the high charge-back rate forced them to do it.
Well said. But I don’t understand:

> until Google can shill their centralized cloud solutions as a scalability option and whatever other evil shit they have in the pipeline

How does this relate to search ads?

It's bad when your bank prevents you from doing business because of conflict of interest.
Upvoting because of spicy sailor talk.
For Paypal, this is just inflation protection for their customers. Inflation is going to be much higher going forward so this feature is more important now.

It's for people who leave a bunch of money sitting idle in their Paypal accounts for several months and don't want it to lose buying power.

Paypal can achieve this by holding onto Bitcoin reserves to back their customers' funds. What this means is that Bitcoin is going to become the new gold standard. This will allow Paypal to take the place of traditional banks and help society to transition away from fractional reserve banking backed by fiat currency.

It is very clever and brave of Paypal to do this.

I've got the invite to paypal's beta program for crypto. Honestly, you've got to be mad to be dealing with paypal. I've read anecdotes from people, losing access to their accounts, locked up money in paypal, etc... It all seemed to be just stories, seemed rare, circumstances unclear. Until one day this summer, out of the blue, paypal demanded ID of my spouse (for her account), and then after reviewing it, "permanently limited" the account, gloriously exclaiming:" Aha, we got your information, now you won't be able to use your current account nor open a new one!"

Trying to get to the customer support is yet another saga, and I will spare your time, but the net result is nil. Nobody in the support knows why the ban happened (there was no real reason to ban a paypal customer with over 8+ years, buying some random stuff on ebay), nobody can revert it, nobody really cares and there are no appeals.

Receiving a note from paypal today regarding crypto looked like a bad, really dumb joke to me and an insult for my spouse. You gotta be completely clueless or insane to trust this shitty company with your crypto. One of the key points for crypto is the lack of "deplatforming", which the sinister paypal does left and right, at the same time not even being able to explain its actions, nor comprehend consequences.

Paypal - never!

It is ironic that cryptocurrencies are becoming a vehicle for more centralization instead of decentralization. Having banks as middlemen between transactions introduced inefficiencies that actually act as a level of opacity that prevents total and absolute control of the transaction ledger. State-regulated cryptocurrencies facilitate all kinds of large-scale economic control, from money printing to sanctions, ostracization etc on a scale that that even systems like SWIFT cannot.

Call me when paypal sells gold, in physical form that you get to keep in your property. Make no mistake that paypal will ban any crypto that cant' be 100% subject to the whims of governments. These centralized "mainstream" cryptocurrencies are going to kill the anarchic ecosystem and consequently outlaw it. The playbook "save the children/our enemies" is such a popular routine nowadays that i wonder why there's not a startup for it.

This is great for driving adoption of cryptocurrencies!

However, the unwanted side effect is also the growth of centralized currencies used as "cash you can track" by governments. And we can be certain PayPal will know exactly where to steer their users...

If anyone is interested in the actual press release from Paypal:

https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2020-10-21-PayPal-Launches-...

Paypal's crappiness was definitely the leading reason for Stripe.

I wonder what is Strope's stance towards blockchain? Will they now also move into blockchain like PayPal, but properly?

This should be interesting. I'll be particularly interested in seeing how Paypal handles KYC for the cryptocurrencies it buys and how it manages pricing variations, where they're paying merchants in Fiat.

Also all the people at Tether can plan to print themselves some new coins --> BTC and then go on a shopping spree :P (for the humour impaired, this bit is a joke)

Let's be realistic here. Buying and selling crypto via Credit Cards or Paypal is a magnet for fraud.
Potentially great news for adoption

Potentially good news for HODLers

Potentially bad news for decentralization

I wonder if they'll allow restoring accounts that were banned for crypto trading. They were pretty hard against it in the beginning IIRC.
PayPal blocked senders and receivers PayPal account in the past if subject was "bitcoin". For me this was an attack vector. Cannot imagine something really changed in this regard...
I still don't see the point of Bitcoin beyond being a digital gold. And monero for anonymous purchases online.

Every country is still gonna have their currencies, and the most stable country is going to be used as the peg currency. Right now that's USD.

So basically Bitcoin is a digital gold, but the underlying trust mechanism is inefficient. Thus it gets centralized at big nodes, like banks or exchanges.

Thus it becomes basically a digital gold. You might as well have banks offer "Digital Gold, $1000 an ounce!"

At this point I'm just wondering why PayPal isn't regulated as a bank. Functionally they're a bank, but on paper they're still a tech company.
No offense. But what about all the fund of innocent people whose accounts got banned because of transactions with coin-exchanges.
> Cryptocurrency payments on PayPal will be settled using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, meaning merchants will not receive payments in virtual coins, the company said.

This is worse than any of the existing exchanges. It's the robin hood of holding cryptocurrency.

Curious that Bitcoin topped $12k for the first time in a long while yesterday. Makes me wonder who knew in advance.

Being in cryptocurrencies has made me cynical.

Bitcoin breaking through $12,300 USD is an extremely bullish indicator: a perfect 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the Dec 2017 all-time high.
“We are working with central banks and thinking of all forms of digital currencies and how PayPal can play a role,”

does that mean a 'centralized' entity will try to facilitate payment based on 'decentralized' currency

wow

The wording wasn't clear. They claim they will allow customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, but will they allow them to send these currencies out of their network?

>Cryptocurrency payments on PayPal will be settled using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, meaning merchants will not receive payments in virtual coins, the company said

Will users be able to take coins out of PayPal and send them to merchants, or will this be another walled garden?

If PayPal's policies and fees weren't so difficult, many merchants wouldn't be into cryptocurrencies in the first place.

PayPal and similar services already salt their "guaranteed exchange rates" quite a lot, so it will be interesting to see how much they tack on for these very volatile assets.

Also, wen stablecoins?

Let’s say that instead of PayPal, there’s another money transfer firm, and they let you move money from one person to another, but for each hour you let them keep the money, you’re entered into a random drawing in which your money can go up or down. The recipient can, at any point, press a button and withdrawal the money. Seems to fulfill the gambling needs of the bitcoin community, while providing the same traceability.
I’ll take this opportunity to plug a (now profitable!) side project of mine: https://olodolo.com allows making AliExpress purchases using crypto. Since AliExpress doesn’t support PayPal this won’t immediately kill me, but the writing might be on the wall.
They could be giving it out for free, to be honest, I still wouldn't ever go back to using their services.
Two huge problems with this, one a consequence from the other:

   - you don't own the keys and therefore don't actually own the crypto, just a vague IOU from payapl

   - paypal can therefore credit you for as much crypto as you'd like (in exchange for your fiat) without actually owning/controlling *any* crypto at all, since there is no way for a user to ask for a crypto-hard proof that the coins they own actually exist.
At the risk of sounding repetitive: not you keys, not your Bitcoins.
Do I read it correctly that it won't pay out crypto, but will only accept it?

Does this mean they will amass a large amount of coin to speculate with in the market as they see fit?

https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2020-10-21-PayPal-Launches-... initially featuring Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, directly within the PayPal digital wallet
Is Paypal still working? It used to be the payment mechanism everyone had to use (not with pleasure) and people even transacted using it for P2P transfer. I haven't really seen it in a while, someone asked me on marketplace if I could receive payment with it (instead of the typical venmo) and I just assumed it was a scam.
I understand the game plan. US financial institutions will accept bitcoin into its system but only pay merchants in USD. Bitcoin in, USD out. The bitcoin won't be let out because it is digital gold. Go long bitcoin. The federal government and its henchmen (banks, financial institutions) are acquiring bitcoin.
Will PayPal need to provide the IRS tax forms as if you had sold/exchanged commodities/currencies?
This is a great play by PayPal to get everyone's BTC. If they act as a traditional bank and allow one to get BTC in, but only pay $currency out, they may do well for themselves if the above is their play.
Can you buy cryptocurrency on PayPal and transfer it to an external wallet?
What will be most interesting will be the commission fee they charge. If they're competitive, then this might become my new go to. Paypal is usually expensive on their transactions normally.
Its all fun and games until paypal freezes your account for "suspicious activity" then keeps the cryptocoins for themselves when you fail to jump through 20 hoops at their demand.
I've gotta say, I wouldn't have expected them to allow cryptocurrency before allowing guns and obscenity.
Only available for U.S. account holders, that's a big detail.
Palantir wants to see your crypto currency transactions too.
Awesome, a reason for me to leave PayPal completely.
Lots of upside for them to allow crypto