Global payments giant PayPal plans to let its users move the cryptocurrency they hold on its platform into third-party wallets.

Fast Facts:

  • PayPal Vice President and General Manager of Crypto and Digital Currencies Jose Fernandez da Ponte revealed at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 conference on Wednesday, that PayPal is working on the crypto withdrawal function.
  •  Although PayPal has permitted its users to purchase Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies since October 2020, the company has been criticized for allowing its customers to be able to hold their crypto only on its platform and use it for direct payments to retailers.
  • “We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay,” 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.”
  • Da Ponte also added that he sees platforms like PayPal as a “natural way” to distribute central bank digital currencies to the public when the they are launched, and that it could better address the challenges of delivering stimulus rapidly, as experienced during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people were forced to wait for months to receive relief checks in the mail.