PayPal set to allow customers to withdraw cryptocurrency

PayPal’s blockchain lead has announced at Coindesk’s Consensus 2021 event that a withdrawal function on the platform is on its way. Speaking to conference moderator Jeff John Roberts, Fernandez da Ponte stated that plans are in the pipeline for PayPal to begin allowing customers to withdraw crypto into third-party wallets. At this moment in time, PayPal does not allow its users to move around cryptocurrency holdings off-platform, despite this it has allowed customers to purchase bitcoin and various other cryptocurrencies since last October.

Fernandez da Ponte stated at the event that:

We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.

Although PayPal tends to ship new developments around every two months on an average basis, da Ponte was unclear on the launch dates of the latest withdrawal functionality. Da Ponte also held off the rumour that the company is set to launch its very own stablecoin, with the blockchain lead suggesting that it is far too early for that sort of development.

PayPal set to allow customers to withdraw cryptocurrency

During the conference, da Ponte was also probed on the subject of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), following news that the PayPal vice president had met up with central bankers across the globe. Though da Ponte accepted the logic of central banks issuing their own tokens, he refused the common opinion that just one of either stablecoin or CBDCs will become the dominant option. Instead, da Ponte is under the impression that the two will co-exist.

Da Ponte also discussed how digital currencies may help in broadening accessibility to the financial system, giving examples of ‘banking deserts’ such as California, which have no physical bank branches. Da Ponte went on to suggest that bank-free areas may not be a problem if CBDCs are eventually prevalent across the country, but that there was still a significant amount of work and coding for PayPal to be getting on with before it becomes an official distributor.

Payments giant Visa recently became the first major payments network to settle Ethereum transactions in USD Coin, a stablecoin backed by the US dollar. To make this possible, Visa partnered with crypto platform Crypto.com.

Specialised payments platform Paysafe revealed in March that its Skrill digital wallet expanded its cryptocurrency offering to the US through a partnership with digital currency platform provider Coinbase.

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