PayPal Allows US Businesses To Buy, Sell And Store Cryptocurrency

PayPal has announced that its business clients in the U.S. will now have the ability to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency directly from their accounts. This marks a significant expansion for PayPal, which had previously offered these services only to retail users via its PayPal and Venmo platforms.

According to the company, there has been growing demand from business owners who want access to the same cryptocurrency services that consumers have enjoyed. Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s Senior Vice President Of Blockchain and cryptocurrency, stated that “businesses are increasingly seeking these capabilities”.

Additionally, PayPal will allow U.S. merchants to transfer cryptocurrency externally to eligible third-party wallets, marking another step in expanding its crypto offerings. However, this service will not initially be available to business clients in New York, as the company still operates under the state's BitLicense regulations’. PayPal also holds a trust license from the New York Department of Financial Services.

Since 2020, PayPal has offered cryptocurrency transactions for individual users, and in 2022, the company introduced its own U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), which reached a $1 billion market cap in 2023. There's clearly a trend happening with paypal / payment services entering the crypto space and it won't be surprising to see many more emerging in the near future.