PayPal to allow US business accounts to buy and transfer crypto

As part of its continued efforts to expand its presence in the digital asset space, PayPal has announced plans to allow U.S. business customers to buy, sell, store, and transfer cryptocurrency.

“This announcement is the latest step in PayPal’s efforts to increase cryptocurrency adoption by providing expanded functionality to millions of businesses in the U.S.,” the company said, adding that when the service launches, it will not be available to business accounts based in New York state.

PayPal’s move to allow U.S. merchants to send and receive cryptocurrency comes after the Silicon Valley-based payments company launched several initiatives to gain market share among businesses and customers in the digital asset industry. After first allowing PayPal and Venmo users to hold digital assets in 2020, the payments platform launched a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin last year that is available on both Ethereum (ETH -0.49%) and Solana (SOL +1.14%). Due to the launch of the new stablecoin PYUSD, its supply currently stands at about $350 million.

“Since we launched the ability for PayPal and Venmo users to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency in their wallets, we’ve learned a lot about how they want to use their crypto,” said PayPal Senior Vice President Jose Fernandez da Ponte. “Business owners are increasingly asking for the same tools to work with cryptocurrency as consumers. We’re excited to meet that demand by offering customers this new feature that will allow them to work with digital currencies without any hassle.”

PayPal also announced that it will allow U.S. merchants to transfer cryptocurrency to “qualified third-party wallets” and receive “verified” tokens from external addresses.