Highly disappointed that Square (Cash) has not launched a BitPay competitor and still only supports Bitcoin. They’ve allowed BTC deposits and withdrawals for years (with great UX!) yet are lagging far behind in release cadence.
The biggest barrier to spending crypto is still finding merchants that accept it, even through third parties. PayPal’s huge merchant userbase will allow dominance if/when they flip the switch to an open loop, “deposit your crypto” approach.
Only PayPal and Stripe can flip that switch at scale with a hosted checkout experience. Merchants don’t care how a user paid, they want fiat.
No one wants to be the guy who sells bitcoin on a massive scale.
Bitcoin sell liquidity is currently $162MM USD on Bitfinex at 0.5% slippage. Buy liquidity is $543MM USD (at 0.5% slippage). For comparison, the sell liquidity on Coinbase Pro at the same slippage is only $4.5MM USD.
My site https://cryptomarketdepth.com/ tracks the liquidity of various cryptocurrencies over time (for the exchanges: Binance, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Bittrex, Coinbase Pro).
Other websites already support this. They just charge a 1% fee and call it a day.
Average credit card fees are already much larger than any fee that would be required to cover price changes.
I am a huge fan of BTC and have held some for many years. But it seems to me the reason this hasn't really happened yet is just that it's not really a big problem that needs solving. Why do people need to spend crypto on online purchases, as opposed to converting to fiat and spending that?
I'm sure it'll happen eventually, it's not a bad thing to give people more options of how to pay. It just doesn't seem like a huge need for anybody in countries like the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Japan (which are the vast majority of the market for companies like Paypal, Stripe, and Square).
Also fiat networks can be censored by financial institutions and government, as we saw with the financial blockade on WikiLeaks a few years ago, and have seen happen against pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong recently. Direct merchant acceptance of crypto provides an alternative when such financial controls are put in place.
Merchant adoption of crypto is an unmitigated good for crypto, from any perspective you look at it from. It's puzzling to me when some crypto enthusiasts see no point in it, when it is really the entire point of cryptocurrency.
Yes, I don't see much point to this service without the ability to send crypto to your Paypal account. I don't buy crypto through Paypal, and I suspect nobody else that knows what they are doing does either. They've tiptoed around the idea of allowing crypto deposits by allowing instant, free, fiat withdrawals to Paypal from Coinbase (where it can then be spent). But they absolutely refuse to allow it directly.
And exchange crypto for fiat or at least USDT/USDC/some other stablecoin. Without that nobody will use the platform.
I have the same problem with US dollars, that some people have more than I do, but I still use dollars often.
Go earn some crypto. People will pay you in it. If you want goods and services, go get cash with it or.... deposit it in Paypal as of today lol.
What specific standard do you need crypto to meet? Answer that for yourself. I'm fine with it.
It is true that one cannot transfer cryptocurrency holdings into or out of PayPal.
ThIs iS AdOptIoN gUyS
Also I'm surprised that groups that are so freedom/privacy oriented want literally every exchange of crypto to be on-chain, public, and traceable without using a money laundering service. Sure yes wallets are pseudoanonymous but if every purchase you ever made was on-chain it would be super super easy to de-anonymize you.
Please don't do this juvenile crap here. If you have an argument to make, then make that argument.
I would like deposits, withdrawals and rotating private key access, like Coinbase does.
But sometimes I just want exposure and the ability to spend it in the same service. This checks that box.
traditional rent-seeking high fee payment processing services are going to inject themselves into cryptocurrency at all cost. At this point the efforts is getting a little comical.
That's exactly what India's UPI payment transfer does. Instant, Direct, Secure, no fee
If you are wondering why Paypal never asked for your passport, it's probably because you eventually linked Paypal to another KYC-compatible entity, such as your bank (by linking your bank, sending money with your credit card, etc).
I assume in the case of bitpay you would only link your btc wallet which in itself doesn't offer KYC verifications.
None of the listed agencies do this in practice.
> privacy
Now I'm starting to believe you may actually be joking. Is that the case?
If you mean at the worst possible price often forcing you before you can cash it out or presenting you with misleading choices so you are likely to stumble into their expensive option then yeah - that offer that.
The market of crypto being used to buy things is incredibly small.
They take a fee here and a fee there, and before you know it they've helped themselves to 4% of the takings.
Sigh, and then there's the seemingly endless nagging about verifying extra users
Would I pay less for the same service? Sure. Am I aware of the horror stories? You bet. Do I explore other services? Yes.
On the other hand, a purely digital business that already has a website, and is moving stuff internationally? Maybe there are better options.
[1] https://github.com/paypal/paypal-checkout-components/issues/...
You can still use visa.
What I get is a one button checkout on smaller sites I may not feel safe giving my credit card number for them to store and/or process.
I'm also not going to put my money in a joke coin like dogecoin.
I like the blockchain, but crypto is just an implementation of it and without a use-case currently ( blockchain has multiple use-cases though).
Instead of trying to go on the emotional side with "hate-train"?
Try to convince me with facts.
Ps. I owned crypto until 2017 and then sold it then, because i didn't see a valid use-case ( and 20 k was high enough for me)
I worked at Coinbase on the Payments team ~2018. Working to integrate PayPal was a nightmare - so much opposition to the integration from PayPal execs and compliance team. Even when we did manage to finally integrate, PayPal was only enabled for crypto sells.
Change in direction at PayPal must have come straight from the top.
In the words of the late great Steve Jobs: "are you getting it yet!??"
We don't need PayPal or Visa to pay with crypto. These are desperate attempts for these middleman to keep the control they have. In fact this way they can make the crypto experience worse than regular payments with hight fees etc. Pushing people away and thinking crypto doesn't work.
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/cryptocurrency-o...
Will this be like what they do when they offer "no transaction fee" currency conversion but build it into the rate they use?
Paypal's service won't change that.
PayPal will likely compensate “no transaction fee” with draconian exchange rate or bid/ask spread.
However judging by PayPal track record and scary stories of arbitrarily freezing accounts I’d advice all my friends to keep their cryptos away from PayPal hands or any of their services.
Not your keys - not your coins
[1] https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/security/seller-protec...
Perhaps Paypal should focus on hiring more customer service agents instead of going a full year without a direct line in the US? Paypal is one of the most egregious fintech companies in existence.
