PayPal announced in a press release Thursday (Nov. 12) that all PayPal users can officially hold, buy and sell cryptocurrencies on the app, a feature that previously had been waitlisted for many users.
The feature was first introduced on Oct. 21 after PayPal was approved for a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services in June, but it is now officially available for all PayPal users. Users will also be able to make payments at any of PayPal’s 26 million merchants using cryptocurrency beginning in 2021, the release stated.
Due to the demand from users for the service, PayPal has also increased the weekly purchase limit from $10,000 in cryptocurrency to $20,000, according to a statement emailed to PYMNTS. There are no service fees for holding cryptocurrency in a PayPal account, and no fees for trading it through Dec. 31.
The move brings cryptocurrency further into the mainstream, thanks to PayPal’s large size and reach. The company has 346 million active accounts and processed over $222 billion in payments in the second quarter, PYMNTS previously reported.
“Our global reach, digital payments expertise, two-sided network, and rigorous security and compliance controls provide us with the opportunity, and the responsibility, to help facilitate the understanding, redemption and interoperability of these new instruments of exchange,” said Dan Shulman, PayPal’s president and CEO, in the initial press release.
While digital currency still remains a fairly niche product, that could change as it is pushed further into the public eye, and if central banks and major corporation begin to use and issue their own iterations.
The company will also be offering its users educational tools to help them better interact with the cryptocurrency “ecosystem” and better understand blockchain technology as well as the “risks and opportunities related to investing in cryptocurrency,” according to the release.
PayPal aims to bring the feature to Venmo and to certain international countries in 2021.
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