There has been significant excitement in the industry since PayPal last week announced its intention to enter the cryptocurrency market. The rollout of its new crypto services — enabling both crypto payments and direct, in-app purchases of crypto — has been officially set for early 2021.
Yet on Oct. 28, the co-founder and CEO of crypto payments firm Circle, Jeremy Allaire, claimed to have used the PayPal app to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin (BTC), tweeting a screenshot of the apparent transaction.
Allaire did not clarify how he had accessed the service prior to its official rollout. In correspondence with Cointelegraph, a representative from PayPal explained:
"At launch we said 'The service will be available to PayPal accountholders in the U.S. in the coming weeks,' meaning that users in the U.S. would have access over time, starting on Oct. 21."
According to the representative, the company had shared a link in its original release for those interested to join a waitlist in order to gain access.
As previously reported, PayPal’s crypto functionality will support Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), alongside Bitcoin. Transactions, while initiated in crypto, will be settled with the site’s affiliated merchants in their local fiat currency.
As of Q2 2020, PayPal had over 346 million active accounts and processed $222 billion in volume. Crypto payments will be supported by its estimated network of 26 million merchants around the globe as of 2021.