PayPal announced today it’s dropping the waitlist to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency in the U.S. With the move, all customers in the U.S. will be able to purchase cryptocurrency directly from within their PayPal accounts. U.S. customers will also be alerted to the new feature through both an email and a push notification in the coming days, the company says.
The feature was already partially available in the U.S. before today, but PayPal had been onboarding interested customers via a waitlist. With the update, users will no longer have to wait for a spot to open.
In addition, PayPal says that due to initial demand from its customers, it’s increasing its weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit from $10,000 per week to $20,000 per week.
In October, PayPal had first announced its plans to enter the cryptocurrency market by way of a partnership with cryptocurrency company Paxos. This partner helps to power the new service for PayPal, enabling its customers to buy, sell and hold a range of cryptocurrencies — initially including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.
By next year, PayPal plans to allow users to make PayPal purchases with cryptocurrencies as well, the company has said.
In terms of exchange rates, PayPal will charge $0.50 USD on transactions up to $24.99 USD, 2.3% on transactions from $25 to $100 USD; 2% on transactions from $100.01 to $200 USD; $1.8% on transactions of $200.01 to $1,000 USD; and 1.5% on transactions over $1,000 USD.
PayPal notes there are no fees for holding crypto in your account. And, to get things started, PayPal is waiving fees until 2021.
The company somewhat quietly disclosed the news today via an update to last month’s press release. It says users can download the PayPal app or log in to their PayPal account to learn more.
