PayPal, a financial services company, now allows customers to send, receive, and transfer bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies among wallets and exchanges.
In a release, the financial services company stated that this feature has been most frequently requested since the platform began allowing users bitcoin purchases in 2020. Customers can now choose to have their bitcoin sent to an exchange, hot wallet, or physical wallet.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte Senior Vice President and General Manager said, “Allowing PayPal customers to move their crypto assets (bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies] into and outside of our PayPal platform reflects our continuing evolution and enables customers interact with the wider crypto ecosystem.”
PayPal noted that it was granted a BitLicense. This is a New York requirement to allow bitcoin-focused businesses to transfer bitcoins and ethereum to external wallets. Fernandez da Ponte discussed the company’s plans with the license in an interview.
“The reason we are in crypto is that we believe a significant portion of commerce will move to digital currencies.”
PayPal can function without any fees for bitcoin transactions because it focuses on commerce and not its exchange role. Rather than being a central exchange, PayPal looks toward evolving commerce using tools like Checkout with Crypto allows users to interact directly with millions of merchants around the world using bitcoin.