Bitcoin Forum

Paypal Introduces Bitcoin as New P2P for Payments

It came in as the topic said, they are integrating the use of bitcoin together with other cryptocurrencies for their payment flow under p2p, which is coming as part of their efforts to ensure that all of their crypto customers got served of every opportunities of making payments with Bitcoin and any other currency of their choice on in using their servers.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/09/15/UCNsLq.jpeg

I also launch into their website to see this is indeed true https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/manage-money/crypto you can trade bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency on their app, but I keep wondering if this is going to be a genuine application of how p2p should operate or we are still under being centralized if we use their p2p they claimed to have initiated

PayPal's inclusion of Bitcoin in its P2P payment system is a strategic move towards increased mainstream acceptance of crypto in everyday transactions. Yet despite it being presented as P2P, the experience is still very reliant on PayPal's centralized system. The users are not sending money directly on-chain from account to account; instead, they are getting their balances moved on PayPal's internal accounting book. This bypasses the decentralized nature of Bitcoin since full control over authentication, fees, and restriction is with the service provider. In technical terms, it is actually more akin to a custodial wallet overlaying a superimposed crypto transaction layer—convenient for mass market purposes but limited in transparency, asset ownership, and interoperability compared with true blockchain-based peer-to-peer transactions.

It's just as same as centralized exchange that offer P2P, the closest example is Binance P2P.

It's really P2P where we trade with other person instead of trade on custodial pool from the exchange, but we as the users have to use PayPal accounts that we all know it's require us to verify our accounts.

Honestly I don't see the point of using P2P in centralized sites.

I find this one of the most waited news at least for me ;D
the reason that bring me to accept only bitcoin for my sales was an issue with paypal. Many years ago it was really hard to make and receive payment on internet.
Paypal due regulations was regularly exploited... I am really curious to see what they will implement and what will be the reaction of " average joe " ;)

Except i am 100% sure that you can't either deposit or withdraw that btc. It just acts as a token that can be traded against fiat money, or you can "send" it from paypal account to another one.

Hopefully they have reserves to actually back up the amount people are buying it. I suppose they probably do, as this can't be more popular among bitcoiners or newcomers then older ways to actually buy bitcoin, that have existed for a long time now.

That is centralized and available only to US citizens.
I have PayPal, but I can't seem to find this cryptocurrency or BTC on the app. I tried contacting them via email, but they said it is currently unavailable in my jurisdiction.

So this is only good news for those living in the United States, but I hope they add more countries to support this feature.


Actually, you can withdraw them and send them to an external wallet, but it is limited only for US users.

you're not the only one excited by the news, it's long waited by all,  so many Americans own Bitcoin as of today and every transaction app should be smart enough to solve financial problem, by making all currency easy and fast for everyone. That is what Paypal just launched, I believe they have many complaints about Bitcoin integration and it's all cool for business.

Bitcoin Making life easier for everyone , this is a step forward for Bitcoin adoption and everyone who's yet to buy Bitcoin should get it now and hodl for long. Soonest every shops and bank will integrate Bitcoin into their system. I pray to live and see it happen.

If this is going to be scrutinized like their ordinary service where they sometimes block the buyer and other times the seller for no good reason whatever then it is not that good. Sure it is an improvement but who wants to risk getting their crypto locked by Paypal? I've seen stories of people trying for months or in some cases even years to get their account unblocked and they didn't even do anything wrong.

The centralized part makes it dangerous. Can we even really call it P2P since it goes through a highly centralized service?

The problem is not really Paypal the problem is the laws of the other countries. I don't think EU will allow this for example.

That's good, until they freeze your account. Then it is not good.  :D

Hahaha...let first laugh in Chinese. ;D Cryptocurrency is sending many businesses parking, they are now trying to buckle up, and this is part of their plans to achieve that. Many of these companies had ruled like an emperor, they did as they liked, it's time they know that it's either they respect crypto or they have their business so reduced in activities. It's only a matter of time.

As for the genuity of the service, well, you don't trust PayPal as such, it only means that many more people will be their victims over time. They scammed enough already in the name of fiat transactions, I wonder how larger their victims will be now in the name of cryptocurrency. Flee!

Yes, been waiting their update to at least expand into other jurisdiction but nothing happens yet. I guess waiting for another years will do is not bad lol.
Paypal is the largest and known centralized online payments AFAIK that is available on any countries, expanding their crypto service to other countries will be huge news to be announced.

I guess p2p (peer to peer) completely lost meaning now. I thought the purpose of peer to peer payment was to eliminate the middle man? But here we have PayPal offer a "P2P" service with them being the middle man?
To me that is not P2P then.

---

Here we go again with some more AI bullshit. I know an AI generated post when I see one, I don't even need to check using AI text detectors

Are you that excited for it? I'm a bit surprised tbh. I don't think I need PayPal that much because most services that I use already offer crypto payments (granted some do use centralized payments providers instead of running their own server). I doubt if PayPal makes this move, the number of people who use crypto for payments will increase a lot. I guess only time will tell, but I certainly won't recommend their service to anybody. It's relatively easy to use a self-custodial wallet and pay stuff on your own to begin with.

Yes, quite a bit. I'm used to it paying things online (linking my cards and banks), i don't usually pay crypto these days due for my reasoning of holding it, but i do sometimes when it's below $30.

About their expansion, i only think it could take more time or execs discussion since it needs regulation in any country or juridisction they want to implement. Just like any CEX does for licensing..

Yeah, if they have any control over this as an intermediary then it is not P2P. I am sure that if some suspicious or tainted coins come across their wallets that Paypal would block them, therefore invaliding the claims of this being P2P. I guess it is better than nothing?

I've read many nightmares stories online about Paypal and for the life of me I don't know why anyone still uses it. There are so many alternative services and options or ways to pay someone.

If PayPal has Bitcoin P2P payments they know how valuable crypto is to the future. PayPal could be using Bitcoin P2P payments to test users if they want to start an exchange. If PayPal make a crypto exchange it will be the biggest in the world because PayPal has more users than Binance.

I don't think so. Let us see first how they utilize crypto in their platform as well as their business strategies integrating btc. Because as we have seen, using paypal, the fees are quite high. That is why, people will still go to binance or other crypto exchanges because the fees are lower. Once, paypal charge competitive fees, then, maybe, they can compete with top crypto exchanges.

It's a welcome development for them since it could attract more customers to app, especially for those whose been longing waiting for them to do so, although not every love the idea of using CEX since it requires them to do KYC and link their card for identification and stuff.
 Currently people value Bitcoin for holding and would prefer to keep it in their portfolio for as long as possible but those whose held for quite a long time can still sell some portions maybe through PayPal since they now got P2P.

It's not gonna be a true p2p as you have paypal poking into your business lol—expect the typical kyc/aml policies too. If my place was supported, I don't think I'd be glad to use this because I would just prefer paying with fiat on paypal.

But things like this is always a good news to me adoption wise as it's an additional exposure to bitcoin, and this time it's from a very popular fintech used in people's day-to-day.

It appears they will be expanding to more countries soon:

PayPal is known for KYC for very long term. I think before some of these centralized exchanges came out, they have been long in this business. They see the opportunity in crypto that's why they at doing everything to attract customers from there. First, it was Bitcoin and some alts they accepted in the platform and now they think there is need for p2p.

My country isn't supported by PayPal but on the global market, maybe this will help to strengthen the p2p markets and make other exchanges to improve on their services.

And they want to keep being in the game to milk the profits from it. Classic ;) With the same KYC or more info needed.

PayPal, as a constantly evolving corporation that keeps track of everything changing in the world, could not ignore bitcoin. They see profit in it, since a huge number of people are already using it, and not developing the option to use bitcoin within PayPal would mean refusing potential earnings. Another issue is that through PayPal, transactions won’t be as anonymous as one might wish, since completing KYC will be mandatory.

I wouldn't be so sure about that since you'll still be using the services of a centralized platform... Imagine buying bitcoin from their exchange ^{[if there were any]} and as soon as you try to send it to an address with a certain AML score, they'll stop you and freeze your account ^{[I highly doubt most users would like to deal with such things]}. Another thing that can happen is if you travel to an unsupported country and log into their platform, they'll close your account.
^{- FWIW, I don't consider what they're trying to offer as a proper P2P!}