[2019-09-09] Comparing Bitcoin to PayPal Makes no Sense

[nulltxmark]

Comparing Bitcoin to other online money transfer services is virtually pointless. It is like comparing apples with oranges, as there will never be any fair comparison to be drawn. That said, Bitaccess is keen on exploring how Bitcoin behaves compared to the likes of credit cards and PayPal. While promising, the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

BITCOIN OUTPERFORMS PAYPAL

The statistic shared on Twitter by BitAccess is rather misleading. While it confirms Bitcoin’s annual transaction volume has increased significantly, that is as far as the “comparison” goes. Claiming how Bitcoin has overtaken PayPal in annual trading volume in both 2017 and 2018 seems to be a bit of a stretch.

More specifically, PayPal notes major growth every single year. As such, one could easily claim that company has seen major growth as well, yet it doesn’t reflect properly on these charts. It is true PayPal generated “just” 578 billion in transaction volume throughout 2018, it is more widely used than Bitcoin may ever be.

Read More: https://themerkle.com/comparing-bitcoin-to-paypal-makes-no-sense/

[Das]

At present, bitcoin is not outperforming PayPal. The entire marketcap of crypto is not up to $500B while PayPal's annual volume exceeds it.

However with the growing awareness of crypto worldwide, BTC might one day outperform PayPal.

[hugeblack]

Bitcoin is a currency and payment system, illogical comes from comparing the payment system with the payment system PayPal and then compare the market value of "currency" and thus get the wrong results.
The comparison must take into account many factors before making comparisons so as not to cause a collision between the data and then misinterpretations.
I think the best comparison will be after the application of the lightning network and the possibility of using the payment system for daily transactions.

[gentlemand]

Comparing Bitcoin to most conventional things is pointless and makes people look like nobs. Paypal, regular currencies, you name it. Most of the time applying 10 seconds of thought makes the comparison dumb.

I wish people would show more diligence as it usually makes them look like moronic cultists and it should be heading past that now.

[1Referee]

Bitcoin usage as currency or payment method isn't as low as people think, because it's legal in few country & there's small group who use Bitcoin to pay goods.

People have no clue about how things work outside their narrowminded bubble. The dollars and euros people use on a daily basis as money is just one aspect of these assets. The far majority of the demand and use for these assets is related to speculation on forex markets. Speculation is what brings in the demand. It's not negative at all.

The ratios between use and speculation in Bitcoin might be farther apart because it's a new and upcoming asset, but it's certainly getting a lot of use as money. There is more than just buying a coffee with Bitcoin that people seem to forget.

[gentlemand]

Does anyone ever compare these things to each other?

Yes. All the goddamn time.

And then someone else pops along and points out how utterly stupid the comparisons are. R/bitcoin is the world capital of stuff like this. If I were running it it would all get the boot.

[Carlton Banks]

I agree that comparing Bitcoin and PayPal makes no sense due to their nature and usage. But it's ridiculous to say this

People are using this platform to pay for a wide variety of things, whereas Bitcoin is not a payment tool, even on the best of days. As such, the annual transaction volume is incredibly misleading when taking it out of context completely.

Bitcoin usage as currency or payment method isn't as low as people think, because it's legal in few country & there's small group who use Bitcoin to pay goods.

well it's impossible to know the reason for every Bitcoin payment, whereas PayPal literally do have a recorded reason for every transaction (although some unknown amount of that will be deliberate misreporting)

it's worse with LN payment channels, as only the sender and the receiver really know about the transaction and what it was for, the route the money takes between them is obscured even to those relaying along the route (and that's a deliberate privacy feature). Eavesdropping on every network-wide change in channel balance won't work either, as any private channels moving money through the network screw up that kind of analysis.

[buwaytress]

Funny that you'd start out saying it's pointless to compare Bitcoin to Paypal, and then go ahead right on and compare it.

Grain of salt taken aside, we've seen plenty of articles like this. Cherry picking really. I love Bitcoin and I'd use it over Paypal any time I could, but let's admit it. Probably easier to send $0.10 every day to someone with PP than it is with Bitcoin. And then having the auto invoicing option? Don't ask me to program that into my client (I know it's possible).

[milewilda]

You cant stop people for it not to be compared when it comes to payment matters.We have seen lots of threads about these comparisons without even thinking that no one really beats up traditional payment system.

Bitcoin is just an another option and i cant really deny that PP is still commonly used. Both do have differences though ( pros and cons).

[boyptc]

Does anyone ever compare these things to each other?

Yes, many did.

It can be stopped since PayPal transfers and fees differs from bitcoin.

[BitHodler]

I love Bitcoin and I'd use it over Paypal any time I could, but let's admit it. Probably easier to send $0.10 every day to someone with PP than it is with Bitcoin.

If you like paying a $1 fee, then sure, go ahead. It's a couple of months ago where I wanted to send someone $0.50 for a stamp through PayPal, and I got charged a fee of $1 to do so.

Completely retarded but I went through with it anyway. Another time I was charged $4 to send someone $80, also through the friends and family option. Bitcoin has definitely an edge over PayPal for cross country transfers.

People don't think it's justified to compare PayPal to Bitcoin because they have given up on the payment narrative. Digital gold narrative has to be pushed so they do exactly that. Poor show. 

[pooya87]

<Comparing Bitcoin to PayPal Makes no Sense but i'll compare them anyways>

who writes these silly articles and why did you think it is worth sharing it here?

well it's impossible to know the reason for every Bitcoin payment, whereas PayPal literally do have a recorded reason for every transaction (although some unknown amount of that will be deliberate misreporting)

as a good estimate we could use the stats released by payment processors. since a great percentage of the merchants are actually using them, the stats is closer to reality and can give you a good comparison.
for example Bitpay claims to have processes more than $1 billion worth of payments for 2 years in a row (2017 and 2018).
Coinbase says they have surpassed $50 million on their merchant app launched in 2018.
i couldn't find anything from others.
my guess is that the total is somewhere around $3 to $4 billion per year at least. Paypal claims to have process $578 billion in 2018.
it is still great though for something so young, volatile and not yet mass adopted to reach these levels.

[Kakmakr]

It will become even more difficult to compare performance, because the Lightning Network makes provision for non-routing nodes and these nodes has “private” channels and the tx's on these nodes are not counted. So to have the full picture, you will have to have access to all the information on all the transactions that are done and you will not have that with Bitcoin. 

PayPal is also a centralized service, so the public will never know if the statistics that are done on PayPal are "real" of "fake" transactions. They can run tests and then add those transactions to their transaction volume and nobody will even know it. 

[bitbunnny]

Finally someone concluded that Bitcoin and PayPal can't be compared. To my opinion you can't compare something that is not the same kind and PayPal is just payment service and Bitcoin is cryptocurrency.  So to compare them makes no sense but for some reason people do that.

[phamminhtan]

Comparing Bitcoin to other online money transfer services is virtually pointless. It is like comparing apples with oranges, as there will never be any fair comparison to be drawn. That said, Bitaccess is keen on exploring how Bitcoin behaves compared to the likes of credit cards and PayPal. While promising, the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

BITCOIN OUTPERFORMS PAYPAL

The statistic shared on Twitter by BitAccess is rather misleading. While it confirms Bitcoin’s annual transaction volume has increased significantly, that is as far as the “comparison” goes. Claiming how Bitcoin has overtaken PayPal in annual trading volume in both 2017 and 2018 seems to be a bit of a stretch.

More specifically, PayPal notes major growth every single year. As such, one could easily claim that company has seen major growth as well, yet it doesn’t reflect properly on these charts. It is true PayPal generated “just” 578 billion in transaction volume throughout 2018, it is more widely used than Bitcoin may ever be.

Read More: https://themerkle.com/comparing-bitcoin-to-paypal-makes-no-sense/

Comparisons are overwhelming, but in a short time Bitcoin will set a higher volume than Paypal.

[CryptoBry]

These two platforms are different in many aspects. While I admit that PayPal is playing a very important role in today's online economy, this is not the future we all envision to be because we are sure that Bitcoin is going to be overtaking PayPal though I am not so sure when that will be. Now, I am sure that Bitcoin will not be able to kill PayPal but they can co-exist with harmony. I for one uses Bitcoin but I also have a PayPal account though we know that PayPal can be acting strange sometimes and can also cause havoc with users it deemed violating its strict TOS.

[mazdafunsun]

Every single news article should be taken with grain of sound and especially crypto related " statistical" news.
PayPal actually should be compared to btc becasue the Satoshi whitepapaer was talking about payments for goods.

Some other things to consider about PP:
PP soon will not be exclusive sellers option on EBay, Ebay terminated their partnership in the end of their current
PP is very harsh when it comes to seller accounts they are often banned for no reason ,their support is hugely ineffective , their policies regarding banning accounts are unlawful and noone can do something about it.

[Slow death]

How can you compare bitcoin and paypal when in reality paypal has been well established since years. Many governments accept paypal and paypal has created its brand as a reliable company that allows people to recover their money in the event of any theft. In 2010 to 2014 have a big wave of PTC sites, what did paypal? oh paypal froze a lot of money of those sites. And what do governments do against paypal? nothing. it is clear that the competition between bitcoin and paypal is disadvantageous to bitcoin

[audaciousbeing]

Comparing Bitcoin to other online money transfer services is virtually pointless. It is like comparing apples with oranges, as there will never be any fair comparison to be drawn. That said, Bitaccess is keen on exploring how Bitcoin behaves compared to the likes of credit cards and PayPal. While promising, the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

BITCOIN OUTPERFORMS PAYPAL

The statistic shared on Twitter by BitAccess is rather misleading. While it confirms Bitcoin’s annual transaction volume has increased significantly, that is as far as the “comparison” goes. Claiming how Bitcoin has overtaken PayPal in annual trading volume in both 2017 and 2018 seems to be a bit of a stretch.

More specifically, PayPal notes major growth every single year. As such, one could easily claim that company has seen major growth as well, yet it doesn’t reflect properly on these charts. It is true PayPal generated “just” 578 billion in transaction volume throughout 2018, it is more widely used than Bitcoin may ever be.

Read More: https://themerkle.com/comparing-bitcoin-to-paypal-makes-no-sense/

Instead of outright turning down any form of comparison, there is need to understand where and the nature of such comparison. PayPal is a way to send money from one person to another, bitcoin can also be used for the same purpose which means this kind of argument is valid as far as the fact is concerned. The difference here is that while PayPal discriminates against certain countries due to reasons best known to them, bitcoin is available to all and sundry irrespective of color, location, or gender so far you have access to the internet, you have the same right as someone in the advance economy.

The point of disagreement or where comparison cannot be entertained is in the area anonymity. Anyone who wants to do that, should be properly explained to that the difference is clear just like the case of apple to oranges and such argument would only lead to waste of time and mere academic exercise.

[kryptqnick]

Comparing Bitcoin to other online money transfer services is virtually pointless. It is like comparing apples with oranges, as there will never be any fair comparison to be drawn. That said, Bitaccess is keen on exploring how Bitcoin behaves compared to the likes of credit cards and PayPal. While promising, the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

BITCOIN OUTPERFORMS PAYPAL

The statistic shared on Twitter by BitAccess is rather misleading. While it confirms Bitcoin’s annual transaction volume has increased significantly, that is as far as the “comparison” goes. Claiming how Bitcoin has overtaken PayPal in annual trading volume in both 2017 and 2018 seems to be a bit of a stretch.

More specifically, PayPal notes major growth every single year. As such, one could easily claim that company has seen major growth as well, yet it doesn’t reflect properly on these charts. It is true PayPal generated “just” 578 billion in transaction volume throughout 2018, it is more widely used than Bitcoin may ever be.

Read More: https://themerkle.com/comparing-bitcoin-to-paypal-makes-no-sense/

I don't understand how Bitcoin outperforms PayPal, honestly. PayPal is obviously way more commonly used than Bitcoin. In fact, I remember a comparison of Bitcoin, Paypal, Apple Pay and We Chat by the number of users, and Bitcoin was way behind even the closest competitor (Apple Pay, I believe). And this is, unfortunately, the objective thing that truly reflects the adoption. Not to mention that Bitcoin can probably handle way fewer transactions than these services. So I agree with the article that there's a lot of speculation, but way less of the actual usage.