When will PayPal start accepting bitcoin?

[em3rgentOrdr]

Sure, paypal is the big kid on the block right now, but who's to say they won't start accepting bitcoin as one of many international currencies?

(Edit: I just added "after 5 years" and "never" as additional poll choices.)

[rebuilder]

I won't try to predict when, if ever, they might do so, but I do think it's entirely possible they will if the market becomes big enough. There's been some sentiment here that Bitcoin is a direct competitor of Paypal, but I don't think that's really the case. Paypal is in the business of making it easier for people to send money to other people. Bitcoin does that too, to an extent, but as we've seen, keeping your wallet secure is a big task for many users, and if PayPal were to offer an Bitcoin wallet service, they could get a lot of users for that. Whether people would be willing to pay enough for the service for them to want to consider it is a different matter, but really I think PayPal would be just like any other on-line wallet service, only huge.

[wolftaur]

PayPal and Bitcoin aren't mutually exclusive at all, in one area that's pretty important for many buyers and sellers alike: Bitcoin is irreversible and that can be a big plus, but there are a lot of people who only use PayPal or similar when buying stuff because they want to be able to protect themselves. There are a lot of solutions to the problem -- reversible transactions is simply one. PayPal, Visa, and so forth, they take a cut in exchange for some measure of protection: Visa, for example, protects buyers from fraudulent merchants AND protects merchants from the loss when someone fraudulently makes a purchase with someone else's money. While there are a lot of people who would choose to have a no-fee transaction on both sides, and there are some people who would prefer things to be irreversible... Honestly, I've been burned enough times that the reality is the only way I'd ever use Bitcoins for a majority of my larger purchases is if I have a way of recovering my funds when a merchant rips me off. At the moment I often jump through a shitload of hoops to transfer everything I have into a specific bank account I have, just so that I have that bank's Visa fraud department to call if I have a problem with the purchase.

And that would simply be another case of free market offering multiple approaches, and individual consumers (in this case, both end-purchasers and merchants) can choose what they want.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Sure, paypal is the big kid on the block right now, but who's to say they won't start accepting bitcoin as one of many international currencies?

Simple, their TOS forbids currency changing so you cant buy BTC using paypal on exchanges.

HOWEVER..this is a way around it, and if you work closely with paypal, you can get it done

Coming soon: www.BitInstant.com - Providing Instant Transfer Services for the BitCoin Economy.

Instantly fund your exchange account with BitInstant using Paypal and Liberty Reserve

[hamdi]

paypal will never accept bitcoin

[wolftaur]

paypal will never accept bitcoin

They'll accept it the picosecond they think that they'll make more money if they do than they will if they don't. They'll be supporters of Bitcoin instantly if they conclude there's more profit to be had by supporting it than attempting to interfere with it. Whether they'll ever actually conclude that is the variable, but they're a corporation, they'll always do what they think will put the most money in their executives' pockets.

[Grant]

They'll accept it the picosecond they think that they'll make more money if they do than they will if they don't. They'll be supporters of Bitcoin instantly if they conclude there's more profit to be had by supporting it than attempting to interfere with it. Whether they'll ever actually conclude that is the variable, but they're a corporation, they'll always do what they think will put the most money in their executives' pockets.

It's never easy to predict what paypal will do. But i guess for bitcoin to have a chance to get accepted by paypal, and idea would be to do what Linden Lab does, stop calling the currency a currency, and just call it a "token" or "a license right to exchange services and goods against".

[wumpus]

stop calling the currency a currency, and just call it a "token" or "a license right to exchange services and goods against".

The difference is that bitcoin is no centralized entity, everyone can call it what they want. Most people already seem to call it a commodity...

[em3rgentOrdr]

I won't try to predict when, if ever, they might do so, but I do think it's entirely possible they will if the market becomes big enough. There's been some sentiment here that Bitcoin is a direct competitor of Paypal, but I don't think that's really the case. Paypal is in the business of making it easier for people to send money to other people. Bitcoin does that too, to an extent, but as we've seen, keeping your wallet secure is a big task for many users, and if PayPal were to offer an Bitcoin wallet service, they could get a lot of users for that. Whether people would be willing to pay enough for the service for them to want to consider it is a different matter, but really I think PayPal would be just like any other on-line wallet service, only huge.

+1.

PayPal and Bitcoin aren't mutually exclusive at all, in one area that's pretty important for many buyers and sellers alike: Bitcoin is irreversible and that can be a big plus, but there are a lot of people who only use PayPal or similar when buying stuff because they want to be able to protect themselves. There are a lot of solutions to the problem -- reversible transactions is simply one. PayPal, Visa, and so forth, they take a cut in exchange for some measure of protection: Visa, for example, protects buyers from fraudulent merchants AND protects merchants from the loss when someone fraudulently makes a purchase with someone else's money. While there are a lot of people who would choose to have a no-fee transaction on both sides, and there are some people who would prefer things to be irreversible... Honestly, I've been burned enough times that the reality is the only way I'd ever use Bitcoins for a majority of my larger purchases is if I have a way of recovering my funds when a merchant rips me off. At the moment I often jump through a shitload of hoops to transfer everything I have into a specific bank account I have, just so that I have that bank's Visa fraud department to call if I have a problem with the purchase.

And that would simply be another case of free market offering multiple approaches, and individual consumers (in this case, both end-purchasers and merchants) can choose what they want.

+1.

paypal will never accept bitcoin

They'll accept it the picosecond they think that they'll make more money if they do than they will if they don't. They'll be supporters of Bitcoin instantly if they conclude there's more profit to be had by supporting it than attempting to interfere with it. Whether they'll ever actually conclude that is the variable, but they're a corporation, they'll always do what they think will put the most money in their executives' pockets.

+1.    You hit the nail on the head, my friend!

Sure, paypal is the big kid on the block right now, but who's to say they won't start accepting bitcoin as one of many international currencies?

Simple, their TOS forbids currency changing so you cant buy BTC using paypal on exchanges.

Actually I wasn't referring to having PayPal allow users to exchange bitcoin for other currencies, but rather have PayPal accept bitcoin as one of their many payment options.

[kjj]

paypal will never accept bitcoin

They'll accept it the picosecond they think that they'll make more money if they do than they will if they don't. They'll be supporters of Bitcoin instantly if they conclude there's more profit to be had by supporting it than attempting to interfere with it. Whether they'll ever actually conclude that is the variable, but they're a corporation, they'll always do what they think will put the most money in their executives' pockets.

Exactly.  The exact same reasoning applies to Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express too.

The questions are "Who will jump first?"  and "When?".  PayPal seems very slightly more likely than the credit card companies to jump in first.  But no idea when.  Could still be years away.

[csa1234]

2018 and still no sign paypal will accept bitcoins

[mktcollier]

I think that to the extent that the acceptance of cryptocurrencies is very broad and there are more companies in charge of international transfers based on the use of cryptocurrencies, then companies like PayPal will have to accept them and in fact, they will lose a good portion of the market.

[khufuking]

I do not think that gonna ever happen before BTC get fully regulated in the US, also the chance of Amazon accept BTC is higher than Paypal do. BTC is a threat to Paypal or at least some kind of threat. BTC is created to stop the centralized payment options like Paypal even we all know that BTC draft far away from this purpose but still that is its core value. My opinion is that it is not gonna happen ever or at least not anytime soon.

[pakhitheboss]

Sure, paypal is the big kid on the block right now, but who's to say they won't start accepting bitcoin as one of many international currencies?

(Edit: I just added "after 5 years" and "never" as additional poll choices.)

Why would they?
Paypal will loose a lot of revenue if they start accepting Bitcoin. They cannot charge such a hefty 3 percent for Fiat conversion as people would prefer alternate option.

There are many startups that are already working on products like paypal using Cryptocurrency. By next year you might be using their services at Amazon or other online retailers. Why would then Paypal enter such a competetive market?

My answer is never.
 

[MrCrank]

Sure, paypal is the big kid on the block right now, but who's to say they won't start accepting bitcoin as one of many international currencies?

(Edit: I just added "after 5 years" and "never" as additional poll choices.)

My opinion: paypal never accept Bitcoin. This is different system.
Paypal centralized and have fiat money/bank system.

[Herbert2020]

this topic was started back in 2011! stop answering it as if it was asked yesterday!

it is interesting to see many have voted "5 years" which is now 7 years gone by and PayPal has not only not started accepting bitcoin but most probably will soon start thinking about creating their own token

[Kakmakr]

this topic was started back in 2011! stop answering it as if it was asked yesterday!

it is interesting to see many have voted "5 years" which is now 7 years gone by and PayPal has not only not started accepting bitcoin but most probably will soon start thinking about creating their own token

PayPal is functioning as a global online payments system and they have strong partnerships in place with Banks, because they charge transaction fees of 2.9% + $0.30 when money comes from credit cards. Why would they ever want to add a funding payment option with almost zero fees and give competition to Banks?

People just need to accept that PayPal will never assist Bitcoin to take even more of their market share.  They also do not need to create their own token, because they have a functional payment network. 

[Vladislav2306]

I think it might happen in 5 years, if not then it will never be the true. If so, the market capitalization will raise up for sure and many of us can make profit.

[jossiel]

2018 and still no sign paypal will accept bitcoins

And by looking at the results, most of the votes were casted to "never" and it really looks like they aren't going to accept and adopt bitcoin.

I think it might happen in 5 years, if not then it will never be the true. If so, the market capitalization will raise up for sure and many of us can make profit.

Likewise those people who said it 7 years ago that it shall be 5 more years before paypal would start accepting bitcoin but look until now they don't even have anything to say with this. I guess we just have to let it go and accept the fact that PayPal is still preferred by most of the people that doesn't want to embrace bitcoin and its management will never look into the possibility that they'll integrate their payment processor with bitcoin.

[thesmallgod]

Nothing is impossible to I see no reason why paypal will start accepting bitcoin. bitcoin to me seem like a rival and beside paypal have a very tough and strict rule when it comes to usage. As of today paypal has not implement the usage of their services in some country due to history of internet fraud and scam. if bitcoin is going to be accepted bt paypal it means they will need to abolish all their rules because bitcoin is available for everyone in the world to use without any restriction.