PayPal rolls out crypto capabilities for U.S. business users

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) is allowing its business clients in the U.S. to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies directly from their PayPal accounts, it said earlier this week, after offering the same service to retail users over the last several years.

The move, which could unlock a broader market for the company, comes as “business owners have increasingly expressed a desire for the same cryptocurrency capabilities available to consumers,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Currencies at PayPal, said in a statement.

The payments giant is enabling merchants to externally transfer crypto on-chain to eligible third-party wallets, it said on Wednesday.

Consumers have been able to buy, hold and sell cryptos like bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ether (ETH-USD) directly from their PayPal (PYPL) and Venmo accounts since 2020. Three years later, PayPal launched dollar-pegged stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD-USD), which recently reached a market cap of $1B.