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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

PayPal, Venmo To Roll Out Crypto Buying and Selling, Says Report (coindesk.com) 22

Fintech giant PayPal plans to roll out direct sales of cryptocurrency to its 325 million users, reports CoinDesk, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Currently, PayPal can be used as an alternative means for withdrawing funds from exchanges such as Coinbase, but this would be a first in terms of offering direct sales of crypto. "My understanding is that they are going to allow buys and sells of crypto directly from PayPal and Venmo," a well-placed industry source told CoinDesk. "They are going to have some sort of a built-in wallet functionality so you can store it there."

It is unclear which or how many cryptocurrencies would be available. The industry source said they expected PayPal "would be working with multiple exchanges to source liquidity." A second source confirmed that PayPal is looking to offer buying and selling of crypto and said the service could be expected "in the next three months, maybe sooner." San Francisco-based crypto exchange Coinbase and Luxembourg-based Bitstamp were mentioned as likely contenders by the sources.

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PayPal, Venmo To Roll Out Crypto Buying and Selling, Says Report

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  • there is so much stuff you can purchase online using paypal....
    • There's no indication this will let you use Bitcoin to make PayPal payments. You'll be able to sell Bitcoin. You could already do this. The only difference is you get to skip a cash withdrawal.

  • Transaction fees? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:21PM (#60220320) Homepage
    Bank or money processors wouldn't be doing this if they didn't get to take money off the top like every other self-inserted middleman out there.
    • Well of course. Banks and PayPal are businesses, not charities.
    • by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:59PM (#60220404)

      Plus, as a bonus, they get to keep your crypto keys in their wallet, so if there is anything that goes wrong, or if you violate their terms for any reason, they can just keep those cryptocurrencies for themselves. It's the perfect scam.

    • Re:Transaction fees? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:08PM (#60220436)

      Of course there is going to be a fee. These businesses are not charities.

      But the fee is often much less than traditional financial services.

      My company employs a graphic artist in Karachi. If we paid her with wire transfers or ATM transactions, the fees would eat up 5% or more of her income. So we pay her with bitcoin. The fee to transfer to her wallet and then for her to withdraw funds as PKR is less than 1%.

  • by nickovs ( 115935 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:58PM (#60220402)

    WooHoo!!! Being able to move money from PayPal to BitCoin and back again sounds like the perfect money laundering tool!

    • WooHoo!!! Being able to move money from PayPal to BitCoin and back again sounds like the perfect money laundering tool!

      "Money laundering" is another word for "privacy".

      It is a made-up crime based on a presumption of guilt.

      • You misspelled piracy.

        Only use I see for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is for the darker side of the net. If you live in a totalitarian state you might get penalized for using it without government approval.

      • "Money laundering" is another word for "privacy".

        No, money laundering is intentionally obfuscating the origins of an amount of currency to subvert or enable the subversion of law enforcement. If your money has obfuscated origins but you pay the taxes on them then you cannot be guilty of money laundering for said money.

        It is a made-up crime based on a presumption of guilt.

        Literally every single crime in existence was invented. That doesn't make them more or less important.

        It must suck to be wrong so often.

        • If your money has obfuscated origins but you pay the taxes on them then you cannot be guilty of money laundering for said money.

          Money laundering is still considered an offense even if you pay taxes on the income. Auditors look for businesses that seem to be prosperous but report suspiciously little income - classic tax evasion. They also look for businesses that never seem to have customers, yet report and pay taxes on a large income. That is considered money laundering.

          But I'm with ShanghaiBill on this one. Money laundering is a fake offense that lazy prosecutors lobbied for because it relives them from the hard work of finding out whether the actual source of income is legal or not.

    • Re:Perfect! (Score:4, Informative)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @02:12AM (#60220804) Homepage

      Which is why it won't fly in many jurisdictions.

      Paypal is a bank, as far as the EU are concerned, and banks have spent the last few years cutting off, regulating or querying all methods of money transfer that are anonymised or could facilitate money laundering.

      Even certain workplaces, e.g. a school I work for, are required to do things like not accept anonymous donations (they can take them but they must know who they were from even if they don't advertise that), not deal in large amounts of cash, identify all their contractors etc.

    • You don't have a clue how bitcoin works. It's not anonymous in fact its the complete opposite and that is the point. Now they are privacy coins like Monero for example.

  • by sheramil ( 921315 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:53PM (#60220498)

    The expression "a well-placed industry source" is a common term found in a lot of the less reputable celebrity gossip magazines. It's used whenever they want to give the article an air of authority without actually naming the source; it implies that the source is secret, and being protected, so whatever they're saying must be true while providing a degree of immunity to prosecution.

    "Another source" gives the impression that the first source's statement has been confirmed by someone else. I note the article doesn't even give a hint as to who either source is. I quietly suggest the sources are coindesk.com, unless someone can find an independent "source" that confirms this rumor.

  • If all they offer is custodial wallets without withdrawals then it's just a trap.

  • This seems suspiciously pointless, not worth PayPal's time or efforts. People use cryptocurrency because of its supposed privacy benefits (despite the fact that all transactions are inherently public). I use PayPal for the exact opposite reason—it's on-record (even if transactions aren't public). When I sell something online, using PayPal instead of cash means that there is clear proof of the sale available. More than a paper receipt, there is a third party that essentially serves as a witness. In sho
  • Ah, I see. When PayPal was shutting down the accounts of cryptocurrency companies, it was because they were building their own competing product.

    Better spin up another cluster of lobbyists.

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