PayPal will start allowing British customers to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies starting this week, the U.S.-based online payments company announced Monday.
The launch is the first expansion of the company's crypto product, which first opened in the United States last year, reports CNBC.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies said the company's feature, which allows customers to buy, sell, or trade, bitcoin cash, ethereum, or litecoin, is "doing really well in the U.S." and the company expects it will also do well in Britain.
Like the one used in the United States, the European version relies on Paxos, a New York-regulated digital currency company, to enable crypto buying. A spokesperson for the Financial Conduct Authority, the British financial services watchdog.
Like with the already-existing U.K. fintech firm Revolut, PayPal users will not be able to move their crypto holdings outside the app. Revolut is testing a feature that will let users withdraw their bitcoin to their own wallets.
According to da Point, the PayPal service makes it easier to participate in the cryptocurrency market.
"The tokens and coins have been around for a while but you had to be a relatively sophisticated user to be able to access that,” he said. “Having that on a platform like ours makes a really good entry point.”
The largest virtual coin, bitcoin, reached a record high of nearly $65,000 in April but then fell to below $30,000 in July, when Chinese regulators cracked down on the market.
Monday, bitcoin topped $50,000 for the first time since May while continuing its recovery, advancing 3.5% to $50,122 in early London trading. Other tokens including Ether and Cardano’s ADA also rising.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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