PayPal president interested in bitcoin

[Bitcoin Oz]

My sense is that they want to compete with western union rather than bitcoin.

Since bitcoin is open source they could literally copy the entire code and mine all the coins themselves. This would make more sense than buying coins at the current prices. They would claim it is the "safe" alternative to bitcoin because they would put a floor under the price by promising to redeem each coin at an agreed value.

[Anon136]

Whatever my issues are with Paypal- them joining bitcoin will make us rich. So I'm 100% supportive.

I'm a passionate Paypal hater. My desire to see them fail is even greater than my desire to be rich.

So I'm not supportive. I hope they perish like the dinosaurs 60+ million years ago.

wow thats some serious conviction! are you sending this message from outside the paypal headquarters with a maltov cocktail in the other hand?

[mrkubanftw]

Not sure if this is bad or good news...

how could it possibly be bad news?

If they buy up a lot of volume @ mtgox, price drops. (Refer to two weeks back for a similar scenario). The budget that PayPal works with is in the ballpark of what can be used to manipulate the market at this point of time. Also, I doubt they give two shits about the whole BTC world. It's better for them to cause the price drop because they can buy everyone out.

Nebulus what would suggest that what happened two weeks ago would cause a market value decrease? Simple supply and demand would suggest if the supply of bitCoin drops, especially on a market exchange, the value would go up dramatically. Then then the market would see massive amounts off sell of because of the high driven value, followed by a peak low because such a high volume sold coin and thus increased supply again.

If the logic behind that is incorrect please correct it. I'm here to learn after all.

[Surpbitcoin]

Did you see the smile on that guy?  Did you notice how the president of Pay pal was acting?

He's happy.

he knows he can integrate Bitcoin into his infrastructure, Bitcoin's proven cryptography lets PayPal use it as it's foundation, sitting on top of it as the front end providing escrow services to protect consumers before the Bitcoin machinery starts it's unstoppable/irreversible transaction.

It'll save PayPal/western union/moneygram billions!!! hell they'll pay their fees to guarantee getting their service done in 10 minutes.

all the services will be on-board very soon providing services that Bitcoin's Ultra Security will not allow it to do.

It's time for Bitcoin to go Global.

For real, this was an awesome interview. The way his face lit up when Bitcoin was mentioned, I knew right away that something is in the works, he wont say it but its the only time in the interview where he had emotion behind the words.

By the end of the year I expect a 500$ bitcoin, paypal, WU and MG to be using BTC and we'll all be real rich. Now if only the same could happen to LTC!

[Stunna]

Paypal could sell bitcoins which would be interesting and take btc to the next level, however paypal utilizing bitcoins is not the greatest idea, would simply defeat the purpose.

[loanexpress]

He talks about being a funding option. So really they'll just be a bitcoin exchange of sorts. The real big deal here is Ebay!

Here's they chain: BTC -> Fund Paypal -> Buy on Ebay

That's where the real benefit for Bitcoin lies - Paypal is merely a transactional vehicle.

Also - it's easy to think that "Oh anyone can open a paypal account". This might be true in America, Europe and Australia, but in relatively well-connected countries like South Africa, India and China you can not easily open a Paypal account - due to funding regulations etc. Suddenly if you can fund via bitcoin, these problems go away and Paypal just doubled their potential user base with almost zero additional administrative effort. No fraudulent or reversible fundings.

Just my 2mBTC

[virtualmaster]

Paypal could sell bitcoins which would be interesting and take btc to the next level, however paypal utilizing bitcoins is not the greatest idea, would simply defeat the purpose.

Of course this would be great but I don't think that will happen.
They are interested to sell their  products on eBay and not to promote bitcoin.

[EndTheFed321]

All I can say is F Paypal I will never use them 

[dave111223]

What a lying sack of sh*t.

"if anything happens, it's on a us...basically...you'll never loss a penny by using Paypal"

You mean "It's on the merchant" you douche...I've lost a lot more then a penny when using Paypal.

[P4man]

Bitcoin is not yet ready for a large company such as PayPal unless they go through BitPay (And I doubt BitPay is ready for that many PayPal transactions).

The solution Bitpay offers is trivial for Paypal. I mean no disrespect but Bitpay is a 2 or 3 person startup without any unique technology or skills;  thats definitely the "easy" part particularly for a company with such resources and that has more experience with merchants accepting online payments, shopping baskets, interfacing with banks etc than anyone else in the world.

The difficult part is the selling, or possibly buying of bitcoins. Bitpay doesnt do that, they use the same exchanges we do. Is MtGox ready for Paypal? I would say they are not. If paypal/ebay were truly serious about bitcoin, they would have to start their own exchange; or buy MtGox and make it work.  I dont think anyone sees them go quite that far and help and lend credibility to what is an opportunity but also a grave threat to their business.

In short, I dont think paypal will do anything with bitcoin in the short term. Long term, only if they feel they have to and if the ecosystem around it is mature enough. But the fact they arent laughing at bitcoin sure is good publicity.

[jdbtracker]

What a lying sack of sh*t.

"if anything happens, it's on a us...basically...you'll never loss a penny by using Paypal"

You mean "It's on the merchant" you douche...I've lost a lot more then a penny when using Paypal.

agreed, businesses to protect themselves from Ebay and Paypal routinely transfer their funds between accounts, just to protect against what paypal does.

[ruggedman_dan]

C'mon guys.

PayPal? Really?

Aren't we supposed to be using Bitcoin INSTEAD of them?

[MiningMole]

C'mon guys.

PayPal? Really?

Aren't we supposed to be using Bitcoin INSTEAD of them?

I can't find anything cool in this ripp-off business either.

I'm so happy bitcoin is here for relief.

[just1nmc]

C'mon guys.

PayPal? Really?

Aren't we supposed to be using Bitcoin INSTEAD of them?

That's the great thing, no one here has to use them. I don't personally have a need for Paypal.

But if you want wider adoption, companies are needed to make bitcoins easier to buy, and keep secure. Bitcoin is still intimidating to get into for most.

If Paypal finds a way to fulfill some of those needs, I have no problem with it.

[MiningMole]

But if you want wider adoption, companies are needed to make bitcoins easier to buy, and keep secure.

Paypal is the very last entity I would be trusting to keep anything secure.

[just1nmc]

But if you want wider adoption, companies are needed to make bitcoins easier to buy, and keep secure.

Paypal is the very last entity I would be trusting to keep anything secure.

I think most would trust it more than the new bitcoin businesses, that are much more susceptible to hacks than Paypal.

Now, I have no need for this, because my bitcoins are secure in cold storage and desktop clients.

But you have to think about people outside of this forum, who are going to make up the majority of bitcoin users.

[TheDarKnight]

LoL! PayPoodle wants in on it now that there's some money in it for them. Please ask them if they love BTC users so much, just why they treat sellers like crap in allowing chargebacks and not even paying attention to the Blockchain? Do fascist bigots even know how technology works?!.. 

[MiningMole]

But if you want wider adoption, companies are needed to make bitcoins easier to buy, and keep secure.

Paypal is the very last entity I would be trusting to keep anything secure.

I think most would trust it more than the new bitcoin businesses, that are much more susceptible to hacks than Paypal.

Now, I have no need for this, because my bitcoins are secure in cold storage and desktop clients.

But you have to think about people outside of this forum, who are going to make up the majority of bitcoin users.

What does this mean? Handing funds over to rip-off criminals out of fear they get stolen by hackers? 

No thanks. People first and foremost need to learn to use their brain.

[w00t]

LoL! PayPoodle wants in on it now that there's some money in it for them. Please ask them if they love BTC users so much, just why they treat sellers like crap in allowing chargebacks and not even paying attention to the Blockchain? Do fascist bigots even know how technology works?!.. 

No I don't think they know anything about it. Or at least their CEO didn't understand a thing.

His expression was like: "Oh crap there is somthing called bitcoin which might kill us"

[virtualfaqs]

Although I'm not a fan of PayPal selling practices, they have one of the best verification systems. This has nothing to do with using PayPal. By entering your email, I know you have a bank account or credit card attached plus verified some personal info and know the date you signed up. There is currently no other system that does that for free. We currently require every single trader on our forums to have a PayPal account with some exceptions and this goes a long way to stopping scammers.

With that said, hypothetically, buyers will want to go through PayPal for their extra protection. Sellers will rather just receive BTC directly.