PayPal has moved forward with its support for cryptocurrencies by allowing people to pay with cryptocurrency at checkout. The firm said that Checkout with Crypto “significantly expands” the usefulness of cryptocurrencies which have largely been kept as assets to date due to the lack of merchants that accept bitcoin and other cryptos.
As things stand PayPal only allows customers in the United States to hold cryptocurrencies so Checkout with Crypto is also limited to consumers in the U.S. although it looks like businesses globally can take crypto payments because the amount is automatically converted into fiat currencies.
With Checkout with Crypto, PayPal says that users will have certainty of value when converting cryptocurrencies into fiat currency and that there will be no additional transaction fees to pay. Users will see the option to pay with cryptocurrencies if their PayPal account is loaded with enough crypto.
Commenting on the announcement, Dan Schulman, CEO and president of PayPal, said:
“As the use of digital payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of Checkout with Crypto continues our focus on driving mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, while continuing to offer PayPal customers choice and flexibility in the ways they can pay using the PayPal wallet. Enabling cryptocurrencies to make purchases at businesses around the world is the next chapter in driving the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies.”
Checkout with Crypto is a huge development for the cryptocurrency world which will help legitimise bitcoin, ethereum, and a range of other cryptocurrencies with more of the general public who may be a bit confused by the decade-old technology.