PayPal chief executive Dan Schulman says his company’s adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will help increase the utility of cryptocurrency overall, leading to price stabilization and a slow increase in value.
Schulman recently went on both CNBC and CNN to discuss PayPal’s recent decision to adopt crypto. The San Jose-based payments giant added support for Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) for all of its US customers on November 12th.
In the interviews, the CEO is adamant that cash is “slowly but surely going away.”
“Especially with the pandemic, you’ve seen the use of cash decline precipitously. Something like 40-70% of consumers no longer want to handle cash, and just like every industry is digitizing right now, that is also happening in the financial services world. There is no question that people are flocking to digital payments and digital forms of currency.”
Schulman says PayPal has worked hand-in-hand with regulators and central banks around the world and says it’s a “not a matter of ‘if,’ but of a matter of ‘when’ and ‘how'” those banks implement their own digital currencies (CBDCs). He also says PayPal’s services will increase the utility of cryptocurrencies.
“One of the things that we allowed is not just making it easy to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies, but very importantly, early next year ,we’re going to allow cryptocurrencies to be a funding source for any transaction happening [with] all 28 million of our merchants and that will significantly bolster the utility of cryptocurrencies.”
MicroStrategy chief executive and Bitcoin adopter Michael Saylor says PayPal’s support of Bitcoin will be a mutually beneficial relationship.
“The beneficially marriage of Big Tech & Bitcoin – PayPal gets a reserve asset that has been appreciating more than 100% per year vs. USD for the past decade. Bitcoin gets a mobile payment network & currency compliance protocols.”
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