PayPal Business Account Holders Can Buy, Hold, Sell Crypto | PYMNTS.com

PayPal Holdings now enables U.S. merchants — except those in New York State — to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal business accounts.

The company also now enables PayPal business account holders to send and receive supported cryptocurrency tokens to and from external blockchain accounts, PayPal Holdings said in a Wednesday (Sept. 25) press release.

The addition of these capabilities for business account holders follows the 2020 announcement that consumers could buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal and Venmo accounts, according to the release.

“Business owners have increasingly expressed a desire for the same cryptocurrency capabilities available to consumers,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital currencies at PayPal, said in the release. “We’re excited to meet that demand by delivering this new offering, empowering them to engage with digital currencies effortlessly.”

When PayPal announced in October 2020 that it jumped into the cryptocurrency business by allowing consumers to buy, hold and sell crypto, it said it aimed to help shape the role that digital currencies will play.

“The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable, bringing with it clear advantages in terms of financial inclusion and access; efficiency, speed and resilience of the payments system; and the ability for governments to disburse funds to citizens quickly,” Dan Schulman, who was president and CEO of PayPal at the time, said.

“We are eager to work with central banks and regulators around the world to offer our support, and to meaningfully contribute to shaping the role that digital currencies will play in the future of global finance and commerce.”

PayPal introduced a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin called PayPal USD (PYUSD) in August 2023, saying the coin lets customers fund purchases with PayPal USD by choosing it at checkout, and convert any of the cryptocurrencies supported by PayPal to and from PayPal USD.

In May, the company said PayPal USD is now available on the Solana blockchain. PayPal said Solana is the most used blockchain for stablecoin transfers and that offering PayPal USD there will make the stablecoin faster and cheaper to use and give users the choice of multiple blockchains for more flexibility and control.