Crypto Exchanges Report Record High Number Of New Users

Crypto exchanges were down earlier this week following increased traffic, particularly from new retail investors.

What Happened: Earlier today, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, tweeted that the exchange saw an all-time high in volumes and new user registrations.

While on-chain signals indicate that crypto adoption may be finally starting to come into fruition, a new survey from CivicScience suggests that interest in crypto still remains low, Axios has reported.

Reportedly, 66% of survey respondents claimed they were not interested in cryptocurrency, while only 5% reported they were happily invested in it.

On a deeper level, the survey found that the majority of investors that were most skeptical about investing in cryptocurrency would prefer to purchase it through Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL).

Why It Matters: PayPal announced its intent to support crypto in October 2020, and as of late January 2021, the company states that it will allow customers to use crypto as a funding source for purchases at PayPal’s 26 million merchants.

According to PayPal’s president and CEO, Dan Schulman, “The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable, bringing with it clear advantages in terms of financial inclusion and access; efficiency, speed and resilience of the payments system; and the ability for governments to disburse funds to citizens quickly,” 

PayPal currently offers its users four cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin.