By
Benjamin Njiri
April 23rd, 2024
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire claimed to have purchased $100 in BTC on the payment app. PayPal is yet to comment on Allaire’s claim.
The CEO of Circle Internet Financial Limited Jeremy Allaire claimed to buy Bitcoin (BTC) worth $100 on PayPal Holdings Plc (NASDAQ: PYPL) in a tweet. Notably, PayPal said in an official announcement that its crypto payment services would begin globally in early 2021.
Bought $100 in BTC on @PayPal ! Great milestone for the market! pic.twitter.com/jsxAxTpGgK
— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) October 28, 2020
Circle CEO Claims to Buy BTC on PayPal
On the 21st of October, PayPal Holdings announced its integration into the cryptocurrency market. The payment giant said the new crypto services would allow users to pay its 26 million merchants with certain digital assets. Upon a successful transaction, PayPal would pay merchants in their local fiat currencies.
At the time of the announcement, PayPal said the service supports only four cryptocurrencies. The PayPal supported cryptos are Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ethereum (ETH).
Also, the new services will allow all PayPal users to buy digital assets on the PayPal app.
According to PayPal’s president and CEO Daniel Schulman, the company hopes to encourage the use of digital currencies globally with the new initiative. Since PayPal announced the new service in partnership with Paxos Trust Company, there have been significant increases in the crypto space. The payment company has already secured a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
In contrast to PayPal’s announcement of the service rollout in 2021, Allaire said in a tweet that he purchased Bitcoin on PayPal. He also posted a screenshot of the claimed transaction. Apart from the tweet and screenshot posted on the 28th of October, the CEO did not provide further details on the transactions. He did not add information on how he gained access to the service ahead of its official rollout, nor did he say if the tweet was a form of advertisement.
As stated by a PayPal correspondence, the company had shared a link to its original release. The link can be used to join a waitlist of interested users ahead of the official rollout.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, the correspondence added:
“At launch we said ‘the service will be available to PayPal account holders in the US in the coming weeks,’ meaning that users in the US would have access over time, starting from Oct 21.”
Several cryptocurrencies surged in reaction to PayPal’s announcement to launch its new crypto services. On the day of the announcement, the price of Bitcoin jumped 8% to hit $13,000.
PayPal Explores Crypto Space
Two days after PayPal announced its new crypto service, unnamed sources revealed that the company is also looking to acquire crypto custodian BitGo. In a Bloomberg report, the sources also said that the two companies could conclude the deal in the coming weeks.
The anonymous sources, however, added that the companies may also not reach an agreement, and PayPal may decide to acquire its other targets.
At the time of the Bloomberg report, there was no financial information regarding the acquisition.
Currently, PayPal is at a premarket trading price of $199.93. The price is a 1.08% loss over its last close of $195.04. PayPal has pulled in gains in the past year as it climbed nearly 86% in the past year. Also, PayPal increased by 80.31% in its year-to-date record. In addition to recent increases, the company jumped over 1% over the past month.
However, PayPal is down 0.53% in the last three months and nearly 4% in the last five days.