PayPal held $250M in Ethereum in 2022
A well-known American payment services company held a large amount of funds in cryptocurrencies last year.
PayPal is another giant among corporations that has bet on digital currencies. According to the financial report, this company held a total of over half a billion dollars in two leading cryptocurrencies. In 2022, this company held $250 million in a token belonging to the Ethereum platform - ETH and $291 million in Bitcoin - BTC. Another $63 million was held in Bitcoin Cash as well as Litecoin. The total value of all cryptocurrencies controlled by PayPal on behalf of customers was $604 million last year.
PayPal held $250 million in ETH in 2022
The financial results of a well-known American company focused on payment services show that in the fourth quarter of last year, PayPal held USD 604 million on behalf of customers in various digital currencies. The largest part of the cryptocurrency held by PayPal was in Bitcoin and Ethereum. It was specifically $541 million.
“We allow all our customers to buy, store, sell, receive and send multiple digital currencies, and use cryptocurrency sales funds to pay for purchases at checkout,” PayPal said in its filing.
In November 2020, this platform took a key step towards virtual currency investors. It has implemented a feature that allows its own customers to withdraw their digital currencies to external cryptographic addresses.
The company mentioned above has been optimistic about cryptocurrencies for a long time. For example, a few years ago, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman admitted that he was extremely positive about the digital currency sector. At that time, he appreciated the blockchain technology, which allows for faster and more efficient transactions.
The damage done by crypto winter
The end of last year was terribly hard for the virtual currency industry. The collapse of the well-known exchange FTX made the confidence of investors even weaker. In 2022, many companies and projects failed, and their failures echoed loudly, causing a number of extensive damage to a wide range of participants in the cryptocurrency market.
The bear market, which has been intensifying for a long time, is also visible in the report presented by PayPal itself. The amount of funds stored by this company in cryptocurrencies was lower in Q4 2022 compared to Q3, during which PayPal registered USD 694 million in crypto assets.
At the end of last year, the BTC rate dropped to around $16,000 per coin. Bitcoin hovered around that level earlier this year. In January, however, there was a strong rebound on its chart. The price of the oldest cryptocurrency increased by more than 40% from levels of $16.4 thousand to above $23 thousand. Currently, one BTC coin is valued at $21.7 thousand.
