PayPal is sending the wrong message

[TGD]

Only novice will make use of PayPal to buy bitcoin when we can just stay noncustodial, but people are just ignorant and not ready to learn but like choosing what is supported by government, and custodial services fooling them in a way they will not have any privacy. I do not know the reason why anyone should make use of PayPal crypto service.

Most of the user of PayPal that buying BTC in there platform is a novice in crypto currency so expect that they know the importance of using non-custodial wallet. Just give the time to understand it besides that, non-custodial wallet sometimes dangerous for a newbie that don't know how to protect there private key rather than storing there balance in there custodial account. PayPal is a trusted wallet unlike exchange in crypto that always experiencing hack.


For me, the OP friend is just an example people that didn't want to hold bitcoin. He just want to get the benefit of BTC price volatility so what he did is basically a quick trade only. And despite BTC on PayPal is just new and they will make some adjustment later on.

[Altcoinsintel]

I'll state a somewhat controversial view: Forcing everyone who's *only* interest in Bitcoin is number-may-go-up to do the whole self-custody thing is bad for Bitcoin.
...
They'll come around eventually.

It is not controversial, I agree we don't need to force our views on anyone and I understand that some people only see this as investment and trust more centralized services like PayPal and Grayscale from themselves. I have listened to an interview from Chamath Palihapitiya earlier this summer and he explained that he couldn't own the Bitcoins he wanted to buy in custodial wallets but he believed in Bitcoin as an asset so he used Grayscale to buy. It is understood completely to have somebody else hold your investments for a 2% fee for security reasons and I don't disagree with this.

With Paypal though I'm afraid people will find Bitcoin the wrong way and perhaps will be disappointed. It looks like a dumped down version and perhaps I am in a dumped down version too as I never downloaded the Bitcoin software, never mined and barely used Bitcoin for anything except from investing,trading and a couple of transactions made.

I think though that the core essence of Bitcoin is removed when PayPal allows buying something that may be Bitcoin or may be just digits without represantation on the blockchain. As I understand this, there isn't any public address shown either.

[passwordnow]

The thing that I've read about PayPal was like that and I don't believed it but if your friend say so and he has experienced it, well, that's just riding the hype.
PayPal should allow their customers to send and receive bitcoin outside their entire network. Because that will really mislead a lot of people if it's only usable within their platform.

[Wysi]

This was unexpected as it kills the nature of financial freedom and decentralisation of bitcoin as it's converted like an e-commerce wallet balance which they can only use under its platform or wallet but cannot transfer it to other wallet. This dirty tactics needs to be stopped and users should be made aware of this and this is the reason I don't like organizations joining bitcoin or crypto in general they just kill the technology just to stay updated and mint more profits.

[Twinkledoe]

The thing that I've read about PayPal was like that and I don't believed it but if your friend say so and he has experienced it, well, that's just riding the hype.
PayPal should allow their customers to send and receive bitcoin outside their entire network. Because that will really mislead a lot of people if it's only usable within their platform.

I think that's the drawback of using PayPal when it comes to crypto. They have certain restrictions when it comes to crypto usage. However, for those that will further strengthen their knowledge in crypto, they will know that PayPal is doing something wrong. It is a good introduction to noncrypto users but in the long run, I believe, they will get out of PayPal system and just deal crypto outside this network.

[Yamifoud]

That is the end of PayPal's hypes. They are no longer can be trusted as they trick innocent people into thinking that they can make a profit from buying Bitcoin at PayPal but it is very unfortunate that only PayPal had taking advantage and trap their deposit.

Now, your friend has no choice but to spend it all using this foolish app. I'm not sure if there is a note notifying us that we can't withdraw our Bitcoin or even make a trade just have only used it to buy stuff connected to them. If that happens, it was the mistake of your friend (sorry because I'd never try to buy Bitcoin from them nor I want to).

[passwordnow]

The thing that I've read about PayPal was like that and I don't believed it but if your friend say so and he has experienced it, well, that's just riding the hype.
PayPal should allow their customers to send and receive bitcoin outside their entire network. Because that will really mislead a lot of people if it's only usable within their platform.

I think that's the drawback of using PayPal when it comes to crypto. They have certain restrictions when it comes to crypto usage. However, for those that will further strengthen their knowledge in crypto, they will know that PayPal is doing something wrong. It is a good introduction to noncrypto users but in the long run, I believe, they will get out of PayPal system and just deal crypto outside this network.

Other members have pointed that out even during their first day of launching. It's not a good place to learn out crypto but their users are just simply using it "because it is PayPal".
And they trust it more than the other regular exchanges that we had. I hope that those people that want to learn deep and gain knowledge about cryptocurrencies will notice this drawback of PayPal's crypto feature.

[Vishnu.Reang]

I had clarified about this in one of my previous posts. PayPal has announced that full services will be available to its cryptocurrency users from mid-2021 onwards. Until then, the Bitcoin services will be in testing phase with limited functionality. Once they launch their full services, you will be able to move Bitcoin to other wallets from the PayPal wallet, and make payments in BTC. That said, I don't think that PayPal will provide you the private keys, even after they launch the full services. It is going to be similar to the case with various cryptocurrency exchanges where you hold coins in exchange wallets.

[Josefjix]

PayPal is a corrupt scheme, no different from traditional banks they have disrupted the whole idea and vision of Bitcoin with this philosophy of not been able to withdraw your Bitcoin or receive Bitcoin on your PayPal account. It is not even Bitcoin that's been offered it is a pseudo coin with a graphical representation of Bitcoin in a trending algebra. I would never stoop low to using PayPal for my Bitcoin activities when most CEXs can offer more use case.

[davis196]

No,you are wrong.From PayPal's point of view,this is the right message.
And the message is:
"You can buy whatever you want with your PayPal balance,as long as there's still a way for us to get back your(our) PayPal money."
Paypal views your account balance as their money,so they can do whatever they want with your account balance,while on the other hand,you can't do whatever you want with your money.
Every person with a brain,who wants to run an online business or to start trading cryptocurrencies should avoid using Paypal immediately.

[Lizzylove1]

Hey, hush. Centralized system are a disaster to this financial world. Why won't they allow me transfer out my BTC AFTER buying using their system? That is abnormal.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I'll state a somewhat controversial view: Forcing everyone who's *only* interest in Bitcoin is number-may-go-up to do the whole self-custody thing is bad for Bitcoin.

Not everyone needs, realizes they need, or is ready for what Bitcoin provides. 

Very well said, also people are only concentrating on the negative impact of paypal without realizing they might be doing more good to the community than bad. The service they offer aren't different from what most others platforms offers. If you're fun of storing your coins on exchange you aren't different from others that'll be using the PayPal platform per se (not your key not your coin).

Paypal will be bringing in publicity (more mainstream cover) to the industry, you think paypal will adventure into the industry if they didn't see them possibly making billions and staying relevant. We can already see the impact as the number of recent (bitcoin price) has been so bullish.

Even though paypal has nothing to do with this directly still they're contributing to the fomo ongoing that's driving new investors into the industry. Overall, I think paypal involvement is good business for bitcoin, with time people will begin to realize how they should be investing and possibly leave the paypal platform to go search for real bitcoins.

[isaac_clarke22]

This is why as much as possible I separate what platforms primarily offers buying cryptocurrency and what platform is primarily for storing usd only.
I already have a bad experience with Paypal locking my account and people should know those horror stories as well and such amount of Bitcoin being held at that platform is just too harsh to imagine.

Wasn't Paypal competing Bitcoin before and now it is adopting it?

[nutildah]

I'll state a somewhat controversial view: Forcing everyone who's *only* interest in Bitcoin is number-may-go-up to do the whole self-custody thing is bad for Bitcoin.

Not everyone needs, realizes they need, or is ready for what Bitcoin provides.  Yet they still may not want to get left behind on the price action.  If you force someone who doesn't want to use Bitcoin to use it they will likely have a bad experience just like anyone forced to do anything else-- they'll do it poorly, they'll lose their coins, they'll blame bitcoin, and they'll demand changes to the ecosystem that bend bitcoin to the need of price-action-only-use to the detriment of other uses.

I hadn't considered this, and it does make sense -- these are probably the same types of people who would be buying a few shares of a Bitcoin ETF if it existed, along with a much bigger demographic of younger people who are only tangentially interested in Bitcoin.

I'm pretty sure PayPal said their end goal was to eventually roll out full-fledged crypto support, including send/receive and as a method of payment. They're just doing things one step at a time. This is similar to how etoro rolled out crypto support... for the longest time you could just trade it and eventually they added a withdrawal option (though its still not incredibly easy).

[Chris Barth]

I was also happy about it. Just until I started hearing complains. They never accepted it as a means of payment. All they do is allow you to buy with so much restrictions like you're dealing with fiat. Bitcoin is a currency that brings freedom, not this thing they are doing.

[Mike Mayor]

This is exactly what I suspected would happen with PayPal.  First off, what do you expect, PayPal is a scummy corrupt as all hell company and has been for a very long time.  The fact that you can only buy / sell/ hold bitcoin is such a joke.  Not being able to send and receive bitcoin ( just like with Robinhood ) should surprise no one.  I would suspect they change this eventaully, but who knows.

IDK this is scammy type behave for sure. Like you pay for something and it isn't even yours? Strange. This might give people the wrong impression of bitcoin. I knew bloody PayPal would never freely allow bitcoin to be used alongside them. People will soon realize bitcoin is better and stop using them.  

[jademaxsuy]

Is this really verified true and correct? How could paypal do this using the name of bitcoin for their own sake and to use their platform as a trading platform.

If this is really true then we must warn all the users here in the forum about the bitcoin which is ready and available in paypal. This kind of platform should be avoided instead so that we cannot get any problems that will going to occur in the future. Anyway, I will going to follow this topic and see to it if this is really true.

[carlisle1]

It is sad that People that should be a new investors and Believer of Bitcoin got trap in this idea in which not to happen.
Every individual that has interest in Bitcoin is our asset but if they have no enough knowledge then outcome will be like this.
Hope that your friend already understand now Bitcoin and tell him to stop patronizing PayPal for Buying and selling Bitcoin because there are many exchange that is not interfering our crypto asset in whatever we want to do .
And lets try to encourage our PayPal user friends not to bag or even Buy in Paypal instead find exchange .

[milani]

More and more stories of such kind appear everywhere, and it made me think that Bitcoin adoption by PayPal is of a very conditional nature. Taking into consideration how everything is not easy with fiat and different users were in Paypal, I doubt that with crypto it will be less complicated and with Bitcoin as well.

[Debonaire217]

That wasn't the freedom that Bitcoin has given us. PayPal made a huge initiative there for more financial institutions to start adopting cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. But if the way how they handle bitcoin is just like that, I would rather choose a less Bitcoin adoption but still, with Bitcoin we knew where all the stated use case from its whitepaper is available.

Imagine, if they just show Bitcoin in Paypal but couldn't be able to withdraw it from our own wallet, perhaps, it wasn't bitcoin at all? There might be huge manipulation happening which isn't really healthy for the entirety of the market.