PayPal Holdings has announced that it will add two more digital assets, Solana and Chainlink, to its applications Venmo and PayPal for United States users. According to the company, Users can now purchase, transfer, or sell these assets directly from their accounts. This new rollout is expected to happen in the coming few weeks, with the move increasing the number of supported tokens to seven.
According to an executive from PayPal May Zabaneh, the addition will aid the company’s goal of expanding in the crypto market. It will open PayPal to a larger segment of crypto users including data providers, developers, and retail investors. PayPal seems to be betting on crypto for the long term. The platform believes that crypto and digital assets will become a major part of digital commerce, despite the temporary volatility in the market.
PayPal increases its crypto support
While PayPal CEO Alex Chriss has not said much about the company’s plans for crypto adoption, Dan Schulman, the previous CEO, has been an open advocate of crypto integration. In 2022, the previous CEO mentioned, “The intersection between digital currencies and the digital wallet is a clear opportunity.”
PayPal integrated crypto for the first time in October 2022. At that time, the company allowed US customers to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash directly from the app. Later, users were treated to a crypto checkout feature in March, 2021. This new feature made it easier for users to spend their assets at various merchants. The crypto would automatically get converted into fiat currency during a sale.
PayPal also entered into the world of stablecoins with its offering of PayPal USD pegged against the US dollar. It launched PYUSD in partnership with Paxos. At that time, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of Blockchain at PayPal said, “The enterprise environment is very well-suited for stablecoins.”