PayPal is moving into the digital asset space after announcing that it will onboard cryptocurrency services for U.S. customers beginning in 2021.
Bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency, rocketed above $12,500 per coin on Wednesday afternoon after the online payment giant announced it would begin a rollout of services to purchase, sell, and hold the digital asset in the company’s digital wallet.
PayPal President Dan Schulman said the adoption of digital assets is “inevitable” and noted that a shift from physical to digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization, is already underway.
“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,” Schulman wrote in a statement.
Officials at PayPal said they expect to expand the services to other countries in 2021 while creating an on-ramp for its peer-to-peer payment app Venmo to hold and send several different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.
Shares of PayPal were up more than 5% on the day of the announcement. Schulman said the company is “working with central banks and thinking of all forms of digital currencies and how PayPal can play a role.”
