PayPal Enables U.S. Business Accounts to Buy, Hold and Sell Crypto

Election 2024 coverage presented by
PayPal (PYPL) will let its business clients buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their accounts in the U.S., potentially opening up a larger market for the payments giant.
After letting its retail users do the same via PayPal and Venmo accounts for several years now, the company also saw demand from business owners to buy, hold and sell crypto, the company said Wednesday.
“Business owners have increasingly expressed a desire for the same cryptocurrency capabilities available to consumers,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital currencies at PayPal in a statement.
The payments company will also allow U.S. merchants to externally transfer cryptocurrency on-chain to “eligible” third-party wallets, according to the statement.
To start, the service will be unavailable to business clients in New York State, the company said, without giving a timetable for when that would change. The company is one of the 20 or so recipients of the Empire State’s notoriously stringent BitLicense. It also has a trust license from the state’s Department of Financial Services.
Since 2020, PayPal has allowed consumers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies directly from their accounts. Last year, it unveiled its U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), which reached a $1 billion market cap this summer.
Read more: PayPal’s Stablecoin Hits $1B Market Cap as Incentives Boost Activity on Solana
Edited by Marc Hochstein.
Disclosure
Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.
Aoyon Ashraf is managing editor with more than a decade of experience in covering equity markets