The international company and global giant in the field of online payments PayPal continues to expand its services related to cryptocurrencies. These reports were also confirmed for Reuters by the company's CEO Dan Schulman. With cryptocurrencies, we will soon be able to pay for products and services in more than 29 million stores around the world.

Cryptocurrencies are often blamed for the lack of merchants that would accept payment in digital currency, which of course reduces their liquidity. For example, in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, you pay very rarely with cryptocurrency for goods and services, and the number of merchants who accept this type of payment is growing just very slowly. All this will change significantly with the arrival of PayPal in the world of cryptocurrencies.

What does this mean for the users?

PayPal currently supports 4 cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). You see these as balances in their application similar to, for example, PayPal credit. When paying at a merchant, you choose one of the supported cryptocurrencies as your payment method, and the amount you pay will then be deducted from that balance. Payment cannot be combined from multiple cryptocurrencies. You will be able to pay this way wherever they accept payment by PayPal.

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The disadvantage could be the system by which you hold your cryptocurrencies in the PayPal application. This is not a classic electronic wallet, which means that you do not have private keys from your cryptocurrencies which are held for you by a third party - PayPal. As we all know, "Not your private keys, Not your crypto" applies here.

From the trader's point of view, practically nothing changes

The biggest obstacle to the mass expansion of payments through cryptocurrencies is always the acceptance of this payment method on the part of merchants. There are several problems with cryptocurrency payments. Let's start with the fact that many merchants (as well as ordinary people) still do not trust cryptocurrencies and consider them to be something imaginary or even a bubble. Of course, the considerable volatility of cryptocurrencies does not contribute to the adoption. After all, no merchant wants to sell his products or services for a price that can fall by tens of percent in a few days. Accounting could also be considered as one of the problems, as accepting payments in cryptocurrencies entails additional necessary actions of the merchant. In addition, many accountants and accounting programs are not prepared for this change.

Read also: WHAT ARE ETFs AND HOW THEY AFFECT CRYPTOCURRENCIES?

PayPal cleverly circumvented these problems along the lines of crypto payment cards (such as the Binance card). At the time of payment, the value is converted to FIAT and the merchant receives the payment in his preferred FIAT currency as before. He may not even know that the payment was made through a cryptocurrency. However, according to published information, merchants are likely to be able to receive payments directly in supported cryptocurrencies.

What does this mean for cryptocurrencies?

Just ask a simple question. How many stores do you know where you can pay with cryptocurrency today? Most people probably don't know either. The number of companies that have PayPal as one of the payment methods is a completely different debate and there are millions of them. Specifically, 29 million worldwide. The world of cryptocurrencies is thus gaining a really strong partner and global player in this market. In addition to the millions of possibilities for spending cryptocurrencies, there is, of course, a huge increase in awareness of cryptocurrencies. Only yesterday, another huge company, VISA, announced its cooperation with Crypto.com. It plans to execute transactions through the second largest stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), through the Ethereum blockchain.

Many analysts anticipate that these collaborations will have a significant impact on the entire market and, of course, on the prices of individual cryptocurrencies. They responded with growth almost immediately after the announcement of these collaborations (Bitcoin + 2.5%, Ethereum + 1.3%, Litecoin + 2% and Bitcoin Cash + 2.4%).

It will certainly be interesting to see how these innovations take over the market and also whether other global companies will enter the world of cryptocurrencies following the example of VISA and PayPal. We are currently seeing a huge increase in interest from retail, but also institutions.