PayPal allows withdrawal of Bitcoin and Ethereum to external wallets

PayPal announced on Tuesday that crypto users can now transfer funds off its platform, a long-awaited feature that will make the company's services more similar to other popular cryptocurrency platforms.

‘Starting today, PayPal supports the native transfer of cryptocurrencies between PayPal and other wallets and exchanges,’ the online payment provider said in a statement.

The ability to make external transfers from the crypto platform will start rolling out to users today and made available to users within the U.S. in the next week or two.

The new feature will allow PayPal users to transfer supported cryptocurrencies to external crypto addresses like exchanges and hardware wallets and to other PayPal users  in a matter of seconds. 

According to PayPal’s Terms and Conditions, updated today, external transfers will only require the external wallet’s public address. Identifying information when withdrawing to self-custodial wallets will not be requested, unlike the requirements in Europe.

Starting 2020, PayPal began allowing users to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies within its platform. These include four top cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. However, moving funds to external destinations such as MetaMask, Coinbase or hardware wallets were not allowed. 

This new offering is significant because PayPal, which also owns the popular app Venmo, has a huge global user base who leverages on the app to transfer money and is increasingly being used by merchants as a payment platform. 

Users had been requesting for the new feature since the company’s buying and selling crypto services went live in October 2020. Shares of the company were up 0.3 percent at US$87.08, according to a report by Reuters.

‘This feature was the most demanded from our users since we began offering the purchase of crypto on our platform,’ said SVP and general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, in a statement. 

‘This is a natural conversion for our users who want to do more with their digital assets,” Fernandez da Ponte said in an interview with TechCrunch. ‘We see ourselves as a conduit between the fiat, or traditional finance, environment and the web3 environment. We are enabling connectivity to other wallets, exchanges and applications.’

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