Washington (AFP)
US online payment giant PayPal announced on Tuesday that it will accept cryptocurrency payments in the United States, an initiative that could accelerate the adoption of bitcoin, ether and other Litecoin transactions.
A new feature in the PayPal wallet will give consumers the ability to "pay in crypto," alongside other payment methods, the group said in a statement.
The service will be "available to millions of online businesses around the world and gradually over the coming months, customers with cryptocurrency holdings in the United States will be able to choose to pay in crypto, seamlessly," PayPal says.
"As the use of payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of + Pay in Crypto + is in line with our action to support the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency," said Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal.
"Enabling cryptocurrency purchases from businesses around the world is the next step that will drive the ubiquity and massive acceptance of digital currencies," added the leader.
Specifically, transactions will be settled in dollars and converted into the currency applicable at standard PayPal conversion rates.
The "Pay in Crypto" feature will allow consumers to sell cryptocurrency through PayPal and then pay a business for their online purchases in a single, seamless checkout flow, the company says.
PayPal is not the first online payments service to support the use of cryptocurrencies.
Square had launched in 2018 an application allowing purchases in bitcoin.
But the juggernaut of online payments, with 377 million accounts, should weigh in the popularization of cryptocurrencies.
On Monday, the credit card issuer Visa announced that it will accept USD Coin, a stablecoin - a cryptocurrency whose price is backed by a currency - to settle transactions for some of its cards.
"Visa will be experimenting with Crypto.com, one of the largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer USDCoin settlement to other partners later this year," the group said in a statement.
USDCoin is based on the network of the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum.
The first, bitcoin, was worth $ 58,896 on Tuesday, up almost 3%.
© 2021 AFP