Last year October PayPal rolled out a highly custodial crypto buy-and-sell product where its users were allowed to buy digital currencies and keep it in their wallet. Now the global payments giant has announced that is taking it one step further, allowing its U.S. users to withdraw the digital currency they acquired through the platform, back into to user controlled digital wallets.
"We want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice,"
said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Vice President and General Manager of the Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies matters at PayPal.
During CoinDesk's Consensus 2021 conference this week, Jose spoke about Paypal's project as a way to do three things:
To offer choice to all consumers;
To encourage people to bring the digital assets to Paypal and use their digital assets for commerce; and
To allow its users to control their digital assets and take them where they want to.
With a move like this requiring a large amount of work on the back end, its unsurprising a completion date for this feature hasn't yet been revealed. While Paypal users aren't necessarily the usual market for digital assets, the move in effect moves Paypal a step closer to becoming a significant player in the digital currency exchange marketplace.
Some might say this has been prompted by the recent Coinbase listing, which has shown the significant value that company has in becoming such a powerful player in the digital asset space.