PayPal PYPL has unveiled a new feature that allows users to connect their personal cryptocurrency wallets directly to merchant checkout pages, enabling seamless crypto payments across borders.
What Happened: This latest enhancement further deepens the fintech company’s integration with digital assets.
The process works by routing the crypto payment through exchanges, either centralized platforms like Coinbase COIN or decentralized protocols such as Uniswap UNI/USD, depending on the user’s wallet, Fortune reported on Monday.
The digital asset is then sold, and the value is first converted into PayPal’s own stablecoin, PYUSD, before being settled in U.S. dollars and credited to the merchant.
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss highlighted the platform’s goal of global accessibility, noting that users in places like Guatemala can now use crypto to shop with merchants in the U.S., such as in Oklahoma City.
This move signals PayPal’s renewed commitment to digital currencies after a brief period of reduced visibility during the 2022 crypto market downturn.
Why It Matters: The company had first entered the crypto space in 2020, enabling select users in the U.S. to trade Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD.
Disclosure: 82% of retail CFD accounts lose money
This functionality was later extended to Venmo users.
PayPal resumed its crypto push in September by enabling merchants to buy, hold, and sell digital assets directly through their business accounts.
Its dollar-backed stablecoin, PYUSD, has also seen growing adoption, with its market cap increasing approximately 70% since January to roughly $850 million, according to data from CoinGecko.
While PayPal currently limits this new crypto checkout feature to select merchants, the company has plans to broaden access to large enterprises in both the U.S. and international markets.
However, it has not provided a specific timeline for this global rollout.
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