The electronic payment giant wants to offer its cryptocurrency trading services to a new country. It also has ambitions to dive into decentralized finance, particularly through its super app.
Bitcoin and crypto in the UK, DeFi on all floors
Heading to the UK: PayPal wants to offer its cryptocurrency trading services to its residents. The company’s CEO Dans Schulman announced the news during the company’s Q2 earnings conference call on July 28, 2021:
“Yeah, well, we continue to be really happy with the momentum we’re seeing in crypto. […] We’re going to launch, hopefully, maybe even next month in the U.K., open trading there.”
In particular, Schulman highlighted the addition of “progressive features” to the cryptocurrency trading platform. The payment giant continues to work toward adoption. On July 15, 2021, PayPal is increasing the weekly cap on the amount of cryptocurrencies its customers can buy to $100,000.
The PayPal CEO also spoke about PayPal’s plans for decentralized finance:
“How can we use smart contracts more effectively? How can we digitize assets and open them up to consumers who may not have had access before? There are also some interesting DeFi applications. And so we’re working very hard.”
A great app seasoned with DeFi
This displayed interest by PayPal in decentralized finance, comes at a time when a leaked video from the EthCC conference in Paris held July 20-22, 2021, shows that Uniswap is in talks with PayPal regarding DeFi integration.
And while Schulman announced that the coding of PayPal’s super app is complete and that the super wallet incorporates “additional crypto capabilities,” he did not, however, provide details regarding those additional features. He did, however, hint that the super app would have DeFi apps:
“There are also interesting DeFi apps.”
This super app is the realization of Schulman’s vision of making PayPal more than just a payment button for consumers, and should put it on the path that made WeChat successful.
To each his own: perhaps PayPal wants to become a DeFi giant, while Vitalik Buterin wants the development of Ethereum (ETH) to go beyond decentralized finance. Ether has outpaced Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of growth and exchange volume according to Coinbase, during the 1st half of 2021. If PayPal’s plans for its super app and DeFi ambitions come to fruition, the 2nd largest crypto in terms of market capitalization could well take the lead in the long run.
