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Leading payment giant PayPal expands its crypto offerings to allow U.S. businesses to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
BTC News Now: The payment giant stated in a press release that its U.S. merchants can now buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies directly from their PayPal accounts.
PayPal Expands Crypto Offerings to U.S. Merchants
The move follows PayPal’s previous offering to retail users, which began in 2020 with support for a few cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and its stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD).
PayPal has yet to support other major cryptocurrencies like XRP (XRP), and there is no exact timeline for when this might happen.
Nonetheless, PayPal’s SVP of Blockchain, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, said business owners have been requesting to buy and sell cryptos like retail users. Hence, the company made the offering available to them.
In addition, U.S. businesses on the PayPal network can now move cryptocurrencies on-chain to and from other third-party blockchain wallets.
Services Not Available to New York Businesses
At launch, these services will be available to businesses across different states in the U.S., except those in New York. The press release did not indicate why New York was excluded from the list of supported regions.
However, there are speculations that the state’s stringent digital currency rules may have influenced this decision.
For context, PayPal currently holds a virtual currency and money transmitter license from New York’s Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Hence, the company is required to adhere to certain requirements before introducing new services within the state.
PayPal Expands Its Crypto Offerings
Since joining the crypto industry in 2020, PayPal has continued to expand its footprint in the industry by introducing new offerings and services.
After allowing its retail users to trade and hold cryptos from their PayPal and Venmo accounts in 2020, the company launched its dollar-backed stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), three years later.
The stablecoin reached a significant milestone in the summer by hitting a market cap of $1 billion. PYUSD’s valuation has slumped to $703.12 million at press time, making it the sixth-biggest stablecoin by market cap.
Following PYUSD’s launch, top exchanges have paired the stablecoin against prominent cryptos like XRP and Shiba Inu (SHIB).