Crypto volume on international payments giant PayPal surges above $240 million.

Global payments provider PayPal recorded $242 million worth of cryptocurrencies changing hands on the platform during Jan. 11. According to crypto market data aggregator Nomics, yesterday’s trading dwarfed PayPal’s previous volume record of $129 million recorded on Jan. 6. Since Jan. 1, daily volume has increased by 950% from $22.8. With the spike in PayPal’s volume coming amid Bitcoin’s rally into new all-time highs, the U.S.-based payments firm appears to be gathering popularity among retail traders.

Retail investors show increasing interest in bitcoin.

Nuggets News’ Alex Saunders noted the spike in PayPal’s crypto trading volume is a likely sign of increasing adoption among retail traders, tweeting: “retail has arrived.” Though many within the crypto community have praised PayPal’s entrance into crypto for driving new users toward digital assets, some have criticized the payment giant for creating a “gated” crypto community that does not support withdrawal functionality. Twitter user Toomas Zobel tweeted, “Is there a way to view whether this was buy or sell volume? In this huge dump, it may just be retail sellers capitulating rather than creating buying pressure.” It is also speculated that the recent fall of bitcoin from $40,000 was because retail investors are liquidating their profits.

Bitcoin continues to hover around $36,500.

At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin is trading at just above the $36,400 mark. The discussions regarding whether PayPal’s volume milestone is bullish or bearish come shortly after Nexo CEO Antoni Trenchev speculated Bitcoin’s recent crash from levels exceeding $40,000 was driven by retail investors rushing to realize profits. Bitcoin has witnessed a massive rally in the last two months as the leading cryptocurrency continued to touch all-time-highs day after day. The short term prediction for the largest cryptocurrency is still bullish.