International payment processor PayPal’s Chief Financial Officer John Rainey told CNBC that the firm is unlikely to buy any cryptocurrencies on Thursday. “We’re not going to invest corporate cash, probably, in sort of financial assets like that, but we want to capitalize on this growth opportunity that’s in front of us,” Rainey said in a CNBC interview. Earlier, PayPal said it would allow U.S. customers to hold bitcoin and digital currencies in its online wallet and shop using cryptocurrencies at merchants on its network.
PayPal plans to invest in services it is already providing.
John Rainey further revealed that PayPal wanted to invest its money in services the company is currently providing, such as buy now, pay later. Such services have blossomed across retail websites during the ongoing global pandemic, as more people turned to online shopping. PayPal’s comments about not buying crypto come amid a bitcoin frenzy after Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla Inc revealed it had bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars.
Mastercard and Twitter also weigh in on buying bitcoin.
Following Tesla’s move into bitcoin, Mastercard also said it was planning to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. Asset manager BlackRock Inc and payments company Square Inc have also recently backed cryptocurrencies. As reported earlier, the microblogging platform Twitter has also thought about whether to hold bitcoin in its balance sheet. However, the social media platform has not made any changes yet, Twitter’s chief financial officer Ned Segal revealed. Twitter had considered how it might pay vendors or employees using bitcoin, should they ask to transact using the cryptocurrency, he added.
