Cryptocurrency market. Some believe it is on its way to reaching the necessary maturity to be a comprehensive alternative (or complement). financial system others claim it is a bubble orchestrated by scammers and speculators. Certainly not all of them agree.

Beyond the opposing viewpoints revolving around this cryptographic world, we can say that it continues to move. And it does so in the face of bitcoin’s ups and downs, regulatory challenges like the one in the United States, currency failures like FTX, and bets from financial giants like PayPal.

PayPal Takes Cryptocurrency Seriously

The entry into the crypto scene of a payments company with a global presence and more than 435 million users can be understood as a significant upturn for the industry. other traditional actors to follow the same path. Although it took years for PayPal to decide and take the steps we see today.

The icing on the cake will be Alex Chriss’ management style. We’re talking about an executive at Intuit who will become CEO of PayPal as of September 27, replacing Dan Schulman, whose accomplishments led the acquisition of Mailchimp since 2014.

PayPal’s interest in cryptocurrencies dates back to 2013, when the company’s CEO, David Marcus, admitted in an interview that they were considering whether bitcoin could become a cryptocurrency. financing tool platform, although his wishes did not come true.

Marcus quit his job at the online payments firm to start working at Facebook (now Meta), where he later went to work on a stablecoin with a dream to “reinvent money” and came under pressure from regulators shortly after changing its name from Libra to Diem. it disappeared. .

Meanwhile, PayPal began to carry out its first actions in the direction of cryptography. In 2014, Coinbase partnered with BitPay and GoCoin. accept bitcoin payments. Years later, in 2018, he filed a patent for an “Accelerated System for Virtual Currency Transactions” aimed at optimizing transactions.

alex kris

In the following years, the firm invested in the world of cryptocurrencies and (before his death) joined Libra. But the most important step was finally announcing its most ambitious move towards this space: allowing the trading of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether on its platform.

Since then, PayPal has not stopped making improvements to its cryptographic offering. Users have been given the ability to: pay for purchases with your cryptocurrencies (although sellers will receive the money in dollars). And when everything looked calm, PayPal launched its own PYUSD stablecoin.

We’ll have to wait to see what innovations pro-crypto Alex Chriss will unveil when he takes over the leadership of the company, but it all points to PayPal’s focus on taking a leading role. market is something that benefits the entire ecosystem for the future.

Images: PayPal

On Xataka: A youtuber bought the world’s largest black apple. Problem: at the epicenter of a crypto scam