PayPal and Venmo add Solana and Chainlink

PayPal Holdings announced two additional cryptocurrencies, Solana and Chainlink, will be added to Venmo and PayPal for users in the US. 

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. Once live, it will increase PayPal’s supported digital coins to seven, according to a recent announcement.

According to May Zabaneh from PayPal, this new addition would serve PayPal’s goal of increasing its presence in the broader 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 is racing to adopt crypto

While the current CEO of PayPal, Alex Chriss has not said much about PayPal’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, PayPal users got a new crypto checkout feature in March, 2021. This new feature made it easier for users to spend their cryptocurrencies at various merchants. The crypto would automatically get converted into fiat currency during a sale. 

PayPal has also ventured into the world of stablecoins with its own offering of PayPal USD pegged against the US dollar. It launched PYUSD in partnership with Paxos. At that time, Jose Fernandezz da Ponte, senior vice president of Blockchain at PayPal said, “The enterprise environment is very well-suited [for stablecoins].” 

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