Paypal is in cahoots with the government to seize your bitcoin

[fuck-the-banks]

I cant fucking stand this neanderthal looking CEO talking about how they will take users BTC, but will process merchant transactions with fiat. And you cant move btc out of paypal once its in.

https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1330874151410814976

This is a trojan horse for governments to seize your btc through neo-con institutions like paypal. The deep state is 100% strategizing with companies like Paypal. This company is scum.

They are already censoring other businesses from accessing their money in their paypal accounts.

https://www.epik.com/blog/paypalupdate

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[Darker45]

How would they be able to take Bitcoin from the people when they don't even provide Bitcoin addresses to their users? Paypal users are not allowed to make Bitcoin deposits to their accounts.

Your worries would have some ground if Paypal would allow users to make Bitcoin deposits to their Paypal wallets but not withdrawals, and would purely settle in fiat all Bitcoin-denominated transactions with partner merchants. For now, it seems there is no actual Bitcoin involved but mere IOUs.

[crwth]

They are probably collecting what they can and what I don't understand is why they are not going to let people let the BTC out.

I don't think a private company would be completely transparent to the government to get that information about people involved in the cryptocurrency scene. Still, I'm quite concerned now that I think about it that it's possible. I'm waiting for other facts on your claims. I can't seem to be justified that they would do that and be the trojan horse. I don't think PayPal is a scum company knowing it helps many businesses operate and accept payments through it.

I guess it just depends on where you are in the spectrum as well. The spectrum where you can either live off just about anything without having to utilize their service or use the service for accepting payments, etc.

[mk4]

If the day comes that we can deposit our BTC to PayPal to be able to pay for things, in the first place, it would be absolutely foolish to deposit every single BTC you have to their platform.

Unpopular opinion: Being able to pay for stuff with BTC on PayPal is useful as heck while platforms doesn't accept bitcoin by default yet(obviously as a temporary solution). It's just that you should move only enough coins to be able to pay for stuff, and not necessarily that you're going to suddenly use PayPal to hold all your holdings.

[Kakmakr]

How would PayPal benefit from such a strategy? Let's say they are in cahoots with the government and they take people's bitcoins....do you think it would benefit them at all? If a Bank takes people's money, they would effectively kill their future business... because nobody would trust their money with that Bank ever again.  

I just think PayPal saw an opportunity to make some extra profits from a competitor payment option. If you cannot beat Bitcoin, you rather join them and profit from it. (This is what some exchanges are doing... the ones with the high profile Bankers)  

PayPal are effectively helping governments to strip pseudo anonymity from more and more Bitcoin owners, by putting an identity linked to their coins. 

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

Nah, there are no incentives for Paypal to be the lapdog of government, its just that this is the business model they built without thinking of the government. And we have a choice, if we don't like it, they be your own bank, simply as that. I know that there are people who don't like Paypal at all, it's understandable. But we don't need to "concoct" any conspiracy theories surrounding bitcoin and Paypal.

[pooya87]

there is no doubt that there is some malicious intent behind PayPal's newest service but it is not in the way you think. as others pointed out you can not yet deposit any bitcoins in their platform.

the biggest reason why PayPal started this is because they don't want to become obsolete as people dump their services and move to bitcoin payments in a couple of years. so they have to make the move now to keep some of their users by then.
there is also obviously a lot of money to be made from the exchange of fiat to bitcoin that used to take place outside of PayPal for years from users who had PayPal dollar and wanted bitcoin.

[palle11]

And we have a choice, if we don't like it, they be your own bank, simply as that. I know that there are people who don't like Paypal at all, it's understandable. But we don't need to "concoct" any conspiracy theories surrounding bitcoin and Paypal.

I think op has opened another thread that will see bitcoin going down if such stories are taken. This is conspiracy, bitcoin and PayPal exchange services which only parties can access. And is a choice rather than fud making which will do the system more harm .

[BlackHatCoiner]

It wasn't beneficial for them to adopt bitcoin and let the users use it freely. I had my suspicions from the day that paypal announced that. I have never put a cent for paypal cryptocurrencies, because it would be dumb. They don't allow you to make transactions with them, but only to keep them as assets. What's the point? They're trying to bank bitcoin. There's no proof that these are actual bitcoins and not just bunch of text that promises you a withdrawal.

As for the government, I believe it's too early to take action.

[NeuroticFish]

they will take users BTC, but will process merchant transactions with fiat

PayPal business model is based on fiat and will not change.
Right now they don't work at all with Bitcoin, they work with IOUs they call Bitcoin and most probably that's what they'll always have.
At some point (next year?) they may integrate with a Bitcoin trading platform which will interact on behalf of PayPal with the actual blockchain.

At least this is what I understood about PayPal Bitcoin "story", but I didn't go to that link (does it change anything?).

PayPal doesn't care about Bitcoin. They just want some more profit. The only good thing for us is the advertising they bring. Sooner or later their users will get proper Bitcoin (I hope) from proper exchanges.

[Wexnident]

In the first place, Paypal doesn't really give Bitcoin to their customers, and vice versa, so saying that Paypal is seizing BTC from their customers is already wrong I think. It's more in a sense of customers asking Paypal to both buy and hold BTC for them. As for the government being involved? I don't really know anything about that tbh.

Also, it's actually a plus of sorts when Paypal opened it's cryptocurrency option, just like the numerous discussions when it opened up, it actually introduced crypto to the major populace right now, as well as providing them an easy way to buy BTC. Granted that ofc, not your keys not your coins kind of thing is happening here, it's still a feature that's pretty welcomed by those new since most of them are just trying out crypto, or are only investing a small amount.

[niisarearning]

How would they be able to take Bitcoin from the people when they don't even provide Bitcoin addresses to their users? Paypal users are not allowed to make Bitcoin deposits to their accounts.

Your worries would have some ground if Paypal would allow users to make Bitcoin deposits to their Paypal wallets but not withdrawals, and would purely settle in fiat all Bitcoin-denominated transactions with partner merchants. For now, it seems there is no actual Bitcoin involved but mere IOUs.

I agree with you even we have to consider the latest paypal bitcoin integration buzz also one of the reason to push market ( out of several reason) . Personally if i want to use paypal for bitcoin transaction the reason should be cash out to fiat currency for my regular need . Other wise i wont transfer to paypal all my holdings

[meanwords]

It does make sense that they are processing Bitcoin to fiat because most merchants aren't really accepting Bitcoin and mostly just fiats. But not being able to deposit or withdraw Bitcoin in Paypal is just stupid. But let's consider this, maybe this is just the start and they are testing the waters. Maybe they will allow deposit/withdraw in the future ONCE they actually have real Bitcoin deposited to their system lol (because I also have a suspicion that this "Bitcoins" in paypal are fake).

Anyway, I love his take on Bitcoin, he's neutral yet he is utilizing the utilities of it for profit.

[davis196]

How would PayPal benefit from such a strategy? Let's say they are in cahoots with the government and they take people's bitcoins....do you think it would benefit them at all? If a Bank takes people's money, they would effectively kill their future business... because nobody would trust their money with that Bank ever again.  

I just think PayPal saw an opportunity to make some extra profits from a competitor payment option. If you cannot beat Bitcoin, you rather join them and profit from it. (This is what some exchanges are doing... the ones with the high profile Bankers)  

PayPal are effectively helping governments to strip pseudo anonymity from more and more Bitcoin owners, by putting an identity linked to their coins. 

Your logic would have been on point,if we were talking about a legit business,not about Paypal.
Do you think that a gigantic billion dollar corporation would care about the online business of some "average Joe",who is generating less than 100K USD per year selling stuff online.I don't think so.
Anyway,you are right about Paypal trying to join the cryptocurrency world just for the sake of getting more revenue and profits and not because the PayPal CEO or their directors and shareholders "like" Bitcoin or the blockchain.

[target]

Whether they are in cahoots or not, they are making the price go up.

Paypal is, of course, collecting BTC and just like the rest of us here they are also aiming to get more from the people who use BTC.  What I personally wouldn't like where this is going is that they are effectively getting the details of users including the bank accounts and wallets of crypto users which the government can also use as part of regulators.

[witcher_sense]

Actually, PayPal simply cannot seize the user's bitcoin if the company doesn't even provide users access to bitcoins, all operations are still in traditional currencies. Nothing has changed, except that PayPal has found a new way to make money using the name of trendy technology. So, I think it is all about money and nothing else. However, the consequences of such pseudo adoption of bitcoin IOUs may be dire.

Millions of PayPal users could have potentially become bitcoin holders, but now they were made to believe that PayPal bitcoin is real bitcoin. Thus, people may have lost a chance to obtain their own, sovereign money, and take part in a real bitcoin economy based on real bitcoins, not fake substitutes for bitcoin.

[Taskford]

I cant fucking stand this neanderthal looking CEO talking about how they will take users BTC, but will process merchant transactions with fiat. And you cant move btc out of paypal once its in.

https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1330874151410814976

This is a trojan horse for governments to seize your btc through neo-con institutions like paypal. The deep state is 100% strategizing with companies like Paypal. This company is scum.

They are already censoring other businesses from accessing their money in their paypal accounts.

https://www.epik.com/blog/paypalupdate

How can they do that while in the first place no one controls the bitcoins so it's just a pathetic claims that they can seize or something similar like this. Maybe they are bringing some fear to the bitcoin users since provably they want the price to fall to gain from it.

But come to think of this now that PayPal adopts bitcoins for sure there's no something seizing or anything bad will happen, but If they really plan to seize all the bitcoins then they need a lot of money to buy all of those. Since I'm sure no one will voluntarily give their bitcoins to anyone.

[avikz]

Paypal's entry to the crypto market is indeed a bad thing. Initially we all thought that it will be great in terms of mass adoption because we didn't know the plan. Now when Paypal has launched the crypto service and we have learned that we can't withdraw or transfer those bitcoin outside, it makes literally no sense and an absolute nonsense!

It is always better to stay out of such services especially when we have many alternatives freely available in the market!

[Kupid002]

Paypal's entry to the crypto market is indeed a bad thing. Initially we all thought that it will be great in terms of mass adoption because we didn't know the plan. Now when Paypal has launched the crypto service and we have learned that we can't withdraw or transfer those bitcoin outside, it makes literally no sense and an absolute nonsense!

It is always better to stay out of such services especially when we have many alternatives freely available in the market!

No idea why they are continues buying newly mined Bitcoin if they don't want to allow it's user to own it in their platform.
if they do that, maybe instead of earning money from adopting crypto currency on their platform, they will lose more users that want to buy crypto in them.they would rather just buy bictoin or crypto on a well-known exchange than to buy on their platform which cannot be transferred to their own wallet.paypal does not know that many people want to have it as an investment and not just buy and sell .

[pixie85]

I agree that how PayPal handles bitcoin transactions is a bit shady and lack of control over private keys is always a red flag but I don't think there's a big conspiracy to take your coins from you.

If the government wanted to do it it could print some money and simply buy bitcoins from you. They wouldn't have to use paypal as the middle man.