PayPal users in the US can now buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies

[Shawn Knight]

Editor's take: PayPal has made it incredibly easy for people to buy and hold cryptocurrency, especially those that may have been intimidated by the process up to now. If ever there was a time for a digital currency to take the next step, now would certainly be it.

PayPal in mid-October announced it would soon allow users in the US to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal accounts. On Thursday, the payments processor made good on its promise.

Eligible users in the US can now buy, hold and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. To get started, simply log into your account and follow the on-screen instructions.

PayPal will charge a fee of $0.50 on transactions up to $24.99, a 2.3 percent fee for transactions between $25 and $100, a two percent fee on transactions between $100.01 and $200, a 1.8 percent fee for transactions between $200.01 and $1,000 and a 1.5 percent fee on anything over $1,000.01.

Notably, there are no fees for holding crypto in your account.

PayPal also noted that due to initial customer demand, they have increased the weekly crypto purchase limit from $10,000 to $20,000.

Oddly enough, PayPal was rather quiet about the announcement. The company mentioned it over on Twitter but didn't put out a dedicated press release about it, instead opting to update last month's news release with a small blurb.

Before diving head-first into the PayPal crypto waters, I'd recommend checking out the company's FAQ on the matter. Right now, there really isn't a whole lot you can do with crypto on PayPal. For example, you can't use crypto to pay for things or send money on PayPal and the crypto in your account "cannot be transferred to other accounts on or off PayPal."

The payments processor is still planning to allow customers to use crypto to fund purchases at its 26 million merchant partners although that feature isn’t expected to be ready until sometime in 2021.

Image courtesy Marc Bruxelle

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87586-paypal-users-us-can-now-buy-hold-sell.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

You'd be better, and safer buying into ETF and Mutual Funds.

 

[Uncle Al]

I remember when PayPal first arrived and all the dishonest practices they got caught in. This fee structure looks a bit flaky to me and when the complaints start rolling in I can't help but think the Fed will get involved. Not sure if that takes Congress to act first but I know unregulated currency is certainly not something within the government likes and with the "know your customer" rule in banking, these kinds of exchanges are absolutely being watch carefully by our many intelligence agencies .....

 

[Aryassen]

OK, so you can buy BC and watch it grow? That's it? If so, I'm not surprised it wasn't a big announcement...

 

[franticfrosty]

So basically, paypal will let you buy crypto so they can hold it for 160-365 days and tell you that its to prevent fraud and you cant do a single thing because they own the platform lol

Paypal cant be trusted at all, Once you get screwed by paypal you realise they're the most corrupt organisation around.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

The average Bitcoin/Crypto buyer should just use Coinbase.

Paypal users don't want to risk their personal money. They fund their Paypal wallet specifically to spend the money on purchases.

 

[terzaerian]

So you can buy crypto purely to speculate on it? That defeats the whole purpose of crypto

 

[Ozmiz]

I don't know what will be the future currency, but cash will eventually phase out.

If I thought the future would be crypto, I would invest more in it.

O to know the future.

 

[terzaerian]

I don't know what will be the future currency, but cash will eventually phase out.

If I thought the future would be crypto, I would invest more in it.

O to know the future.

That's the thing. We have to *make* crypto the future. The traditional financial and payment system isn't going to change itself; innovators like Paypal only got them to budge slightly. And after wasting almost a decade being a no-coiner skeptic, I started to understand those crypto nutcases after payment processors started wielding their power to suppress speech, among other things. Now that I'm immersed in it, I can tell you I've never been more excited about new technology.

 

[Markoni35]

Crypto can hardly be the future, for several reasons:

1. It's fluctuating too much. Nobody wants money that changes its value by 600% inside of one year. It's more like stock share than money.

2. People that have tenths of thousands of fast computers at their disposal (like Google or Amazon) can create money out of thin air. Also, hackers, government agencies and corporations, who know about backdoors in all the popular operating systems, can use our computers and cellphones (and our electricity) for mining without sharing a dime with us.

3. It's generating CO2 and heat. Because it spends enormous quantity of real-world electric power on generating a virtual value, by melting our CPUs, GPUs and ASICs to produce meaningless numbers that basically have no real value. As such, cryptomining is unsustainable and ecologically dangerous.