PayPal Reportedly Discussing Its Own Stablecoin

Online payment operator PayPal is hitting the newswire today, reportedly discussing the creation of their own fiat-backed stablecoin. Adoption of broader mainstream crypto within major companies continues to grow, exemplified by this and other recent company discussions, such as eBay CEO Jamie Lannone discussing new potential payment options and potential utilization of NFTs in recent days.

What We Know

Initially reported by The Block, several unnamed individuals quoted to be familiar with the situation state that PayPal is engaging with a number of different developers, including Ava Labs, around the potential launch of their own stablecoin. With PayPal reportedly engaging with a number of different stablecoin developers, it’s rumored that PayPal could likely lean on a third-party company to develop the firm’s coin.

Ava Labs crypto, AVAX, had a surging start to 2021 but has cooled off and remained relatively stable in recent months. Ava Labs is fresh off the heels of announcing partnerships with The Graph and AllianceBlock in recent months.

Ava Labs AVAX surged to start the calendar year | Source: AVAXUSDT on TradingView.com

PayPal: Not New To Crypto

This isn’t the first sign of PayPal looking to dig into the crypto landscape, of course. The payments behemoth has previously acquired crypto custodian Curv, and in just the past month teamed up with Coinbase and helped raise Series D funding for crypto and blockchain startup Paxos.

These developments, of course, all follow PayPal’s added features over the past last year that allow users to buy, trade, and hold cryptocurrencies. PayPal’s mobile payment service Venmo launched ‘Crypto on Venmo’ roughly a year ago, and PayPal conveniently offers within it’s native software ‘Checkout with Crypto’, allowing crypto holders in the US to pay for online purchases. ‘Checkout with Crypto’ currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Coinbase, as part of the firm’s partnership with PayPal, launched ‘Buy With PayPal’ in tandem.

Related Reading | PayPal, Square, Others Crucial In Driving Bitcoin 70% Higher in a Month

What’s Next?

Following the release from The Block, a PayPal representative told the outlet that the company “continues to explore the potential of digital currencies, digital financial services infrastructure and how we can help enhance digital commerce as a trusted partner in the space”.

PayPal’s recent moves to engage further in the crypto space, along with the recent partnerships and acquisitions for the firm suggest a new stablecoin is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. This news also comes to the market less than two weeks after a statement from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman expressing that demand for cryptocurrencies has been “multiple-fold” relative to expectations.

PayPal engages with business in over 200 countries and over 100 global currencies, and conducted over 15 billion payments worth nearly $1T USD last year alone.

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