23 Jun VIDEO AND BLOG: PayPal and Venmo Traditional Payments Companies get into Crypto! What does this mean for Africa

Notes for video:  PayPal (300m users) and Venmo (40m users) getting into crypto.  Going to start selling bitcoin.  Bigger than Cashapp and Revolut.  Could become the biggest exchanges.  People can buy and sell crypto through their apps.    Square’s Cashapp has done well reporting $300m+ in crypto revenue for Q1 2020. 

PayPal can be expensive and is losing market share to the new entrants.   PayPal has traditionally struggled to get traction across Africa as a result of compliance, cost, and currency requirements.  

Could this be their foot in the door.  Crypto is a must have for traditional payments companies to stop people from defecting to the new financial system.  Interesting stat is that if all PayPal and Venmo customers were to own bitcoin in the same amount they could only have one twentieth of a bitcoin each.  This is good news for those of us who hold bitcoin in terms of demand and supply and price.

The move by PayPal is another bridge between traditional and digital currencies and a new way of banking and finance.  These legacy companies are going to be disintermediated.  That’s how life and business works.  But by who and what?

This is a bolton - what others are there - lending, blockchain?  Jumping on the alternative payments infrastructure bandwagon.   Could this catalyse PayPal’s market penetration across Africa which has historically been very jurisdictional.   As Ivan says "its lipstick on a pig"?  Or could this be real change for Venmo and PayPal that dresses them up for mainstream African payments adoption?  Time will tell.

Click here to get paid across Africa with us https://africanpaymentsolutions.com/news/#footer

With thanks for inspiration to my favourite daily dose of crypto on Ivanontech and my daily good read with Coindesk