PayPal to Allow Users to Withdraw Cryptocurrency to Third Party Wallets

PayPal said on Wednesday it plans to allow users to withdraw cryptocurrency to third party wallets.

The San Jose, California-based company, that opened its platform to digital currencies last October, at present does not let users move cryptocurrency holdings off its platform.

The news was earlier reported by Coindesk, citing comments from Jose Fernandez da Ponte, who leads PayPal's blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies business unit. Speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus 2021 conference, Fernandez da Ponte said, “They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.”

Last year, PayPal said that US account holders will be able to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets. PayPal planned to expand the service to its peer-to-peer payment app Venmo and some other countries in the first half of 2021.

Other mainstream fintech companies, such as mobile payments provider Square and stock trading app firm Robinhood Markets, allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin (price in India) climbed back above $40,000 (roughly Rs. 29 lakhs) for the first time this week, as recent volatility in the cryptocurrency market showed few signs of dampening down.

Bitcoin jumped as much as 6.5 percent to $40,904 (roughly Rs. 29.7 lakhs). Smaller coins, which tend to rise and fall with the largest cryptocurrency, also gained, with Ether (price in India) climbing over 7.5 percent to over $2,906 (roughly Rs. 2.1 lakhs).

© Thomson Reuters 2021