Payment processing giant PayPal is planning to roll out cryptocurrency trading facility to its huge client base. In this regard, the company has selected Paxos to manage the platform’s listing of digital assets.
It is a big work for New York-headquartered Paxos, which last week rolled out a brokerage firm, named Paxos Crypto Brokerage.
Revolut US, the American business division of the UK based financial technology firm offering Bitcoin trading facility, is the first customer to sign up with the brokerage firm of Paxos. PayPal is yet to make a formal announcement.
Along with Square, PayPal would be one of the renowned mainstream companies to facilitate purchase of cryptos, if the news turns out to be real.
Notably, another lesser known mainstream broking firm Robinhood also facilitates cryptocurrency purchases. Clarity is yet to emerge on what PayPal intends to offer.
Notably, few days back, there were media reports indicating that PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo is working to roll out crypto buying and selling facility to a section of its 325 million users.
Paxos Crypto brokerage, which offers an API based tool for easy roll out of cryptocurrency related services, facilitates crypto trading, storage and remittance. Even regulatory aspects are handled by the API solution.
Notably, Paxos, which has received a New York state trust charter, is an approved custodian. It is legally allowed to hold gold and cryptocurrencies such as Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) on behalf of institutional investors.
San Franciso headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which has a very good relationship with PayPal, is expected to offer a slew of white-label cryptocurrency offerings. European exchange Bitstamp, which offers cryptocurrency liquidity to the UK based Revolut, is also perceived as a competitor. None of the companies have responded to the news.
Along with Revolut stepping into the US market with cryptocurrency trading paltform, Square, the payments processing platform offering cryptocurrency trading, rolled out by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saw its Bitcoin trading revenues increase. Square launched Bitcoin trading facility through its Cash App in mid-2018 and reported revenue of $306 million in the latest earnings report.
In the meantime, Robinhood, the stock market focused app popular among millennial, started offering cryptocurrency trading in February 2018. Following the launch of cryptocurrency trading, Robinhood’s app recorded over 2 million downloads, a record for the company.
Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla, in a blog post, has stated that the brokerage services offered by the firm could kick start interest among several renowned mainstream financial arena players in its services. Cascarilla also stated that it is ready to scale up its platform, itBit, to satisfy the demands of new customers.
