The famous (or rather infamous sometimes) payments giant PayPal announced recently they will be adding support for buying and selling 4 of the top Cryptocurrencies. Something people have been speculating about and hoping for perhaps as soon as Bitcoin was created, but now that it is actually here, was it really worth it? Obviously, large supporters of decentralisation and blockchain would say they would rather die than give their money to PayPal, often citing the (perhaps overused) phrase “Not your keys, not your coins”. And although that phrase has merit, it also puts on too much responsibility on the average user. On the other hand, you will have supporters of adoption and freedom who might say that getting Bitcoin and crypto in general in the hands of more people is great for everyone, this way they can atleast have exposure to it which might lead to something more.
The Good
It is pretty hard to dispute that getting Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in front of more eyeballs is a bad thing. What can just start as them seeing the option on PayPal might eventually lead to them buying their own Bitcoin and holding on a hardware wallet, or using smart contracts on Ethereum, or supporting businesses that accept cryptocurrencies. And the popularity of PayPal will definitely get more eyeballs on crypto; with an estimated userbase of 350 million people, it is easy to see how this is a great way to get more people interested. Additionally, it allows average users to quickly and conveniently invest into cryptocurrencies as part of their investments. This news could also be quite big for crypto payments, something that has been growing greatly over the past few years but was lacking a big push. If PayPal was able to integrate payments in cryptocurrencies, this could be huge for the market if goods and services that could be bought with PayPal could then be bought with crypto and the conversion to fiat handled automatically.
The Bad
Some of the disadvantages that may come up as counter arguments against PayPal joining the crypto space are quite obvious at first. For example, how a highly centralised entity like PayPal (especially since it is a private company) can exist in a space that is all about decentralisation. However, this wouldn’t particularly be the first (or last) time a centralised entity has been a large presence in the space. Centralised exchanges such as BINANCE have existed for many years and dominate the crypto exchange market, and other services still have large centralised players too. There is also a case to be made that PayPal is notorious for having long holds on money and can sometimes lock accounts for seemingly no valid reason. Such actions might make people even more so scared of cryptocurrency and might give it even more of a bad name than it already has in the general public.
The Ugly
Perhaps you are already aware, if not, listen carefully as this might be a dealbreaker for many people who wanted to use PayPal for their cryptocurrency transfers. PayPal will not be allowing users to transfer crypto in or out of the platform, for now they are only allowing the buying and selling of BTC, ETH, BCH and LTC. This means that existing cryptocurrency users will not be able to deposit into PayPal and will lock new potential interest into their ecosystem because they can’t withdraw outside of their service, essentially creating their own little cryptocurrency market. This is likely a deal-breaker for many people and for very good reason, this unfortunately negates a lot of the advantages of having new exposure of crypto if all they can do is buy some and just hold it in the custody of a centralised service notorious for locking accounts and holding back funds. Unfortunately, until PayPal can allow users to actually use their cryptocurrency for payments as well as allow deposits and withdrawals, the negatives very well might just weigh the advantages for now.
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