Financial services company PayPal has unveiled plans to launch a Cryptocurrency Center designed to allow users to buy and sell Crypto assets from their PayPal accounts.
PayPal introduced the initiative by updating its terms and conditions, noting that the center will allow users to interact with the digital assets in their accounts in a variety of ways. Additionally, it will facilitate payment for purchases through PayPal using “funds stored after the sale of Crypto assets”.
In addition to buying and selling digital assets, the center will support the hosting of PYUSD (PayPal USD, a stablecoin anchored to the U.S. dollar) as well as its conversion to other Crypto assets, and allow users to “view market information and educational content,” according to the official disclosure.
PayPal says that any balance a user has in the Cryptocurrency Center represents ownership of the amount of each asset shown.
The feature will only be available to select PayPal users who have a “balance account” in good standing, and PayPal will also verify the user’s identifying information, including the name, physical address, date of birth and taxpayer identification number provided by the user.
PayPal’s update also mentions that users may be asked to provide a facial photo or other biometric information for identification purposes. And, PayPal will prohibit users from using the feature if they are residents of Hawaii.
After launching its US dollar stablecoin PYUSD, PayPal seems to have opened its arms to Crypto assets for good.
Experts have described PayPal’s latest move as a “giant leap forward for Web 2.5,” which has the potential to seamlessly access new users and explore distributed ledger technology (DLT).
PYUSD’s issuance may generate optimism among industry stakeholders that PYUSD’s issuance could open the floodgates for mainstream adoption of digital assets.
But critics are picking holes in the initiative. They argue that PYUSD’s smart contract includes “wallet freeze and wipe” functionality, which runs counter to the idea of decentralization.
In addition to increasing adoption metrics, bulls are expecting a price rally, just as PayPal did when it first ventured into digital assets in 2021.
Industry insiders believe that PayPal’s 2021 integration of digital assets was the trigger for the last bull market, leading to BTC reaching an all-time high of $68,789 by the end of the year.
