PayPal Cryptocurrency Service Now Available For All Eligible US Users

PayPal Holdings Inc PYPL has made its new cryptocurrency service available to all eligible users in the United States, the company informed customers in an email.

What Happened: Last week, during the quarterly earnings release call, PayPal disclosed that only 10% of its users in the U.S. could access digital assets services at the time.

The payments company has also increased the weekly limit on cryptocurrency purchases on its platform to $20,000 per user, from the earlier $10,000, as per PayPal Communications Manager Aaron Gould, CoinDesk reported.

PayPal’s international customers as well as Venmo users will also get access to this feature sometime in the first half of next year, the company's CEO Daniel Schulman said on the earnings call.

The online payment solutions provider has tied up with Paxos Technology Solutions LLC — a New York-based regulated financial institution, to overlook digital asset custody.

Why Does It Matter: The plan to expand into the digital assets domain was officially announced in October.

The services are initially restricted to select cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC). Users can exercise the option of self-custody on PayPal. The payments platform will neither support digital transfers to other PayPal accounts nor will it allow users to shop using virtual currencies — a move that has invited criticism from experts.

In October, there were reports that PayPal was planning to acquire BitGo — a California based digital asset custodian providing multi-signature wallets service.

Price Action: After a 1.68% drop during trading hours, PYPL regained 0.73% during the after-hours to close at $190.48.

Photo courtesy of PayPal