By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – The price of Bitcoin jumped on Tuesday morning after Reuters reported that PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) is to start allowing US consumers to use their cryptocurrencies to make purchases.
The payments company later confirmed the service - ‘Checkout with Crypto’ - and said that customers holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in PayPal digital wallets will be able to convert holdings into fiat currency at checkouts to make purchases.
“As the use of digital payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of Checkout with Crypto continues our focus on driving mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal. “Enabling cryptocurrencies to make purchases at businesses around the world is the next chapter in driving the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies."
How it works
At checkout, if a customer has sufficient balance of cryptocurrency to cover an eligible purchase, crypto will automatically display as a payment method, however, only one type of cryptocurrency can be used for each purchase.
The company has confirmed that they will not charge transaction fees to checkout with crypto but a cryptocurrency conversion spread will be built into the conversion from crypto to USD.
Corporate acceptance
Although PayPal revealed they were working on the service last year, the company is the latest of a series of firms to put cryptocurrency payments into practice.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced recently they were to begin accepting Bitcoin for payment of its vehicles. Yesterday, Visa (NYSE:V) conducted their first settlement transaction using the stablecoin USD Coin, a move that sent the price of Bitcoin higher to start the week.