How long does it take to transfer Bitcoin to PayPal?
CarlA payment system for people who like to spend bitcoins (ie, no-one) and value the undesirability (ie, no-one using PayPal PYPL ).
Given that the people who are great supporters of Bitcoin often talk about its key characteristic being that it is person-to-person, uncensorable value transfer you do have to wonder who will be using the new PayPal service that will allow them to pay merchants using the cryptocurrency. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the answer will be approximately nobody. This is because, broadly speaking, nobody does now.
The overwhelming majority of all cryptocurrency transactions are purely speculative and the people who think that bitcoins are a good investment (and I am not saying that I do or do not think it is a good investment, am not making any comments that might be misconstrued as financial advice and am clear that any comments I make about cryptocurrencies are for entertainment purposes only) are never going to use it for payments.
visit for exchange - bitcoin to PayPal
Bitcoin was originally billed as an electronic cash system but most bitcoins aren't used as currency in transactions for goods and services. Surveys have shown that the majority of bitcoin are held for speculative purposes and while some retailers accept Bitcoin, they see cryptocurrency purchases having a higher drop-out rate than cards and cash payments. Maybe PayPal can help here, but I don’t think that’s the real focus.
Helen Holmes (Instagram @TheOfficeMuse)
Think about it. If you think that the value of a bitcoin is going to the moon (and will be worth $1 million each within five years, as this former Goldman Sachs GS hedge fund person has just predicted) then why would you waste even a tiny fraction of a bitcoin buying a pizza or a Pez dispenser? No, the people who will use their PayPal wallets to exchange bank dollars for a claim on PayPal’s bitcoins are simply investing.
Here in Forbes Billy Bambrough called this a “nasty catch”, noting that PayPal wouldn't let users transfer their cryptocurrency into or out of their PayPal wallets, nor would the users have control of the private keys that allow holders to move their digital assets. Note, therefore, that neither the consumer nor the merchant ever has any actual bitcoins in their possession. If consumers choose to pay a merchant using claims on bitcoins from their wallet, then PayPal gives the merchant dollars anyway.
When people do use bitcoin to buy things it tends to be things they can't buy using PayPal anyway. The amount of cryptocurrency spent on "dark markets” rose two-thirds to reach a new high in the final quarter of 2019, according to Chainalysis and the New York Times NYT says that this data is likely to understate the number of transactions for illegal purposes because the company cannot identify all activities relating to drugs, ransomware, tax evasion, and money laundering.
If I use bitcoin to buy illegal drugs, for example, because of its "anonymity" and undesirability, then I am hardly likely to start buying drugs using PayPal. The example of adult services makes this point rather well. Adult performers who are engaged in a perfectly legal business complain that PayPal refuses to allow payments to them and so they are forced to use third-parties who take anywhere from a third to four-fifths of performers' earnings in fees. Those people still won’t be able to use PayPal, whether in dollars or bitcoins, so the new service won’t make any difference to them.
So what is going on?
Well, since the people who run PayPal are much richer and much smarter than I am, I am forced to conclude that they must have a plan. I’m pretty sure this plan goes beyond earning some spreads from buying and selling cryptocurrency for the same housebound investors who are buying and selling Tesla TSLA stock on Robinhood. I have no knowledge of what PayPal is doing or why, but I do have some experience looking at strategies for financial institutions exploiting new technology, so I think I can make an informed guess.