Reuters reported Wednesday that PayPal will allow customers to shop at its 26 million merchants using cryptocurrencies from early 2021.

PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) customers can now buy, sell, and hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using the company’s online wallets. The facility will be available to US account holders over the coming weeks. (Reuters)

Crypto adoption

PayPal’s action is a huge boost for the adoption of cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin, across the globe. The payments giant has 346 million active accounts globally. It processed $ 222 billion in payment transactions during the second quarter.

In an interview, PayPal president and chief executive Dan Schulman said the company was working with central banks and various forms of digital currencies. It was also considering PayPal’s role in that environment.

By opening up its network to cryptocurrencies, PayPal will prepare for these new digital currencies. It will, as well, as step up the global use of digital currencies.

PayPal said the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has granted it a first-of-its-kind conditional Bitlicense.

Furthermore, PayPal will partner with Paxos to provide the crypto service. In July this year banking challenger Revolut too tied up with Paxos to launch its cryptocurrency service in 49 American states.

CrowdFund Insider quoted a response to PayPal’s action from Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network as follows:

“This is definitely a bullish sign for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Crypto is all about trust, and PayPal has a very high level of trust with its users: it has helped many people do their first web and mobile-based transactions in the past 20 years. If the UI/UX of the service is done right, we will see millions of new users join each month. We are convinced that many of these new users will want to try additional services like lending and interest income after buying their first few coins–this will be a rising tide for all crypto players.”

PayPal and bitcoin are off to the races

Shortly after its announcement, PayPal’s stock touched an all-time high of $ 215.83.

Meanwhile, bitcoin surged by as much as 8% after the news came, touching an intraday high of $ 12,817.17, its highest level since July 2019.

Further, as this is being written, the cryptocurrency is trading at $ 13,002.

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