After a limited launch of buy / sell / hold crypto trading that “exceeded expectations”, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said on the company’s fourth quarter earnings conference call that the payments giant is ready to double cryptocurrencies .
“We also saw an exceptional response from our crypto launch,” said PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. “[…] The volume of crypto traded on our platform far exceeded our expectations. “
Schulman said that cryptography would be accepted “as a source of funding when [users] buy from any of our 29 million merchants ”at the end of the first quarter, and that 2021 will present a“ broad roadmap around cryptography, blockchain and digital currencies ”.
Schulman added that PayPal is actively working with regulators and central banks “to shape the future” of a post-physical cash world.
“We are investing significantly in our new cryptography, blockchain and digital currencies unit,” he said.
Analysts had expected a 3.87% increase in total accounts to 375 million, as well as $ 266.8 billion in total payments processed, an 8% increase over the third quarter; the company exceeded both expectations with $ 277 billion processed and 377 million in total accounts. The company also posted revenue of $ 21.45 billion.
The company’s fourth-quarter investor update materials also promised “digital currencies” as a “main focus area”.
In addition, the company said that its “Buy, retain and sell cryptocurrencies” initiative would expand to “Venmo and select international markets” in 2021. The company also noted that users of its cryptographic services become more active users of PayPal generally after purchasing encryption, logging in twice more.
Finally, PayPal’s materials echoed Schulman’s statements, saying that a “commerce experiment” would be launched in 2021, which would provide “cryptocurrency as a funding source to pay PayPal’s 29 million merchants worldwide”. These integrations would be settled by decree and would exempt traders from conversion rates.
In November, PayPal took a big step toward adopting digital assets by allowing its users in the U.S. to buy encryption directly through the app. Customers located in the United States are limited to negotiating $ 20,000 a week. Since then, the volume of crypto trading on the platform has reached record levels, reaching $ 242 million in transactions on January 11th.
The platform also announced plans for customers to use cryptocurrencies to buy from any of the 26 million merchants on its network starting in 2021, a goal reaffirmed during the company’s third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At that time, PayPal executives indicated that central bank digital currencies were “a matter of when and how they would be made, not if”.