In response to customer demand, PayPal announced today that its users can now transfer cryptocurrency from their accounts to other wallets and exchanges.
“This feature has been the most requested from our users since we started offering the purchase of crypto on our platform,” said Jose Fernandez da PonteSVP and General Manager of Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currency at PayPal.
The new functionality will allow PayPal customers to transfer supported coins to PayPal, move crypto from within the app to external crypto addresses, including exchanges and hardware wallets, and send crypto to other PayPal users “in seconds”.
Customers are responsible for network fees when making remote transfers, which depend on the blockchain and vary depending on the crypto asset. Internal transfers – PayPal to PayPal – have no fees.
“If users have crypto elsewhere and want to consolidate it, they can bring it to PayPal from external addresses,” Fernandez da Ponte. “They can also send crypto to anyone who is in the PayPal system.”
PayPal gave its users the ability to buy, sell and hold crypto in October 2020† Then, at the end of March 2021, PayPal announced the launch of Checkout with Crypto, a feature that allowed consumers to checkout at millions of online businesses using cryptocurrency. That feature expanded on PayPal’s current investments in the cryptocurrency market, which: include his partnership of Paxos to power its service that allows customers to buy, sell and hold a range of cryptocurrencies and be acquisition from cryptocurrency security startup Curv. At Consensus last year, Fernandez da Ponte confirmed that the next step would be to give its users the option to switch.
“This is a natural conversion for our users who want to do more with their digital assets,” Fernandez da Ponte told Vidak For Congress this week. “We see ourselves as a conduit between the fiat or traditional financial environment and the Web3 environment. We enable connectivity with other wallets, exchanges and applications.”
Provide its clients with the ability to move their crypto assets such as: bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash or litecoin – in, out and in PayPal is a move the company could not avoid if it wanted to keep up with ongoing crypto adoption and not risk being behind the times in a rapidly changing fintech landscape .
And despite the recent turbulence in the crypto space, Fernandez da Ponta said PayPal is moving in this direction “like people [still] adopting cryptocurrencies.”
“This move shows that we are doing this for the long term,” added Fernandez da Ponte. “I think it’s important to stay on track and continue to invest in the space.”
The new functionality is only available to users in the US, and for security reasons, PayPal says it has implemented an additional identity verification process for users before they can transfer crypto. The rollout will be gradual, with select US users able to do so starting today, and with other “eligible” US customers — those who complete the identity verification process — in the coming weeks.
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