PayPal launches crypto checkout service

This is not a BitPay competitor until PayPal allows users to deposit cryptocurrency. Until then it is a closed loop system, users and merchants cannot yet deposit or withdraw crypto itself, similar to Robinhood.<p>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.<p>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&#x2F;when they flip the switch to an open loop, “deposit your crypto” approach.<p>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, they didn&#x27;t. They launched a service where you can buy certain cryptocurrencies from PayPal and then sell it back to them at a later time, which may happen to be at the same time as you are paying a merchant fiat money. You can&#x27;t even transfer your cryptocurrency to or from PayPal.

&gt; The company will charge no transaction fee to checkout with crypto<p>Will this be like what they do when they offer &quot;no transaction fee&quot; currency conversion but build it into the rate they use?

Ugh PayPal, haven&#x27;t used them in ages, avoid them whenever I can - nowadays they&#x27;re good for one off donations and that&#x27;s about it.<p>They take a fee here and a fee there, and before you know it they&#x27;ve helped themselves to 4% of the takings.<p>Sigh, and then there&#x27;s the seemingly endless nagging about verifying extra users

PayPal did a complete 180 from their stance on crypto just 2 years ago.<p>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.<p>Change in direction at PayPal must have come straight from the top.

Imagine if PayPal was handling your cash transaction when your are at a store instead of you paying the store directly.<p>We don&#x27;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&#x27;t work.

“ The company will charge no transaction fee to checkout with crypto and only one type of coin can be used for each purchase, it said...”<p>PayPal will likely compensate “no transaction fee” with draconian exchange rate or bid&#x2F;ask spread.

Just in case some of you try the service: don&#x27;t forget to consider capital gain tax in addition to PayPal fees&#x2F;conversion rate.

Paypal&#x2F;Visa&#x2F;Mastercard doing rent seeking again. Sign of old guards trying to be relevant.

Positive for crypto in general.<p>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.<p>Not your keys - not your coins

What&#x27;s the point if you cant even deposit crypto to paypal? Does the crypto ever even exist?

PayPal launches pyramid scheme checkout service.

or just, you know...pay the vendor directly. capitalism cannot abide a market that exists unexploited it seels.<p>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.

I wonder what the dispute resolution mechanism will look like. &quot;Item not received&quot; and &quot;Unauthorised Transaction&quot; complaints by users are the ones mentioned by Paypal Seller Protection [1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paypal.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;webapps&#x2F;mpp&#x2F;security&#x2F;seller-protection" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paypal.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;webapps&#x2F;mpp&#x2F;security&#x2F;seller-protec...</a>

On with the hype train. Just like in 2017 when they all announced crypto support and then it silently got removed ( square, steam, ... )

This basically kills BitPay who recently made all transactions (of any value) in crypto require KYC registration.

Ray Dalio says US likely to ban crypto soon. OTOH, PayPal adding support to crypto, Visa adding support to crypto. Are these being accelerated by Wall St &#x2F; hedge fund types who stand to lose many Billions of US bans crypto

@ what fees? and why?<p>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.

Can I actually send bitcoin to an address to pay? Or is this only paying with my PayPal crypto balance - which has no blockchain deposit or withdrawal capability?

With this news and the Visa news yesterday Bitcoin still is not at the ath. It seems mostly a very small group of people are driving this bull cycle, Namely Musk(I am assuming he has some influance over PayPal ), Saylor, Dorsey, but somehow that equals &quot;institutional investment&quot;. Everyone else involved seems to be more selling &quot;shovels and picks&quot;.

Who pays at stores with PayPal? Is that a thing?

How does this affect the environment?

I do not want to pay federal taxes on every purchase I make.<p>Paypal&#x27;s service won&#x27;t change that.

bearish... why sell the crypto

With &quot;big&quot; companies coming in on the Crypto bandwagon is Crypto really worth anything? I don&#x27;t understand (and maybe someone can explain it to me) how Crypto is for &quot;the little guy&quot; when those who started out at the beginning have &quot;all&quot; the crypto already. There is no way I am going to be able to &quot;mine&quot; more crypto than those who started years before me or those who have more &quot;traditional&quot; money than me currently to buy crypto. It&#x27;s still money. It&#x27;s still a bond, a promissory note; it&#x27;s not real and is only worth what the big guys (whether traditional or crytpo big guys) say it is worth. But I am no economist or financial expert. So why should I use crypto? I&#x27;m still at the bottom in that game.