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PayPal CFO Says Company is Unlikely to Invest Cash in Cryptocurrencies

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Paypal

PayPal CFO Says Company is Unlikely to Invest Cash in Cryptocurrencies

PayPal is not likely to buy digital currencies like bitcoin, though the company does see immense opportunity in the digital wallet space.

In an appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money” Thursday, PayPal Chief Financial Officer John Rainey said the payments giant has no interest in buying cryptocurrency, instead preferring to invest in services that are additive to the platforms it offers.

“We’re not going to invest corporate cash, probably, in sort of financial assets like that,” he said in response to an inquiry from the show’s host, Jim Cramer, “but we want to capitalize on this growth opportunity that’s in front of us.”

The company has acknowledged that it believes the transition to digital forms of currencies is inevitable. In December, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman called digital wallets a “natural complement to digital currencies” and said the company serves 360 million digital wallets.

PayPal does have exposure to the crypto market. In October, the company announced that it would allow users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin. Users can also shop with the digital coins in PayPal’s retail network.

Venmo, the mobile wallet owned by PayPal, is expected to begin offering the same services in the first half of this year. The features will also be extended to international markets.

PayPal plans to invest its money in companies that provide “complementary assets to our platform” that can drive growth, Rainey said. The company also announced Thursday it would introduce its buy, sell and hold crypto services to the United Kingdom in the near future.

“The types of services that we’re providing, like buy now, pay later [and] crypto as an example — even offline QR code — those are the types of things that we want to continue to invest in, be it organically or even inorganically when we see opportunities in the ecosystem,” he explained.

Buy now, pay later is a point-of-sale loan program that works much like layaway plans, allowing shoppers to pay for products via an installment plan with no interest or fees.

The crypto comments come as activity in crypto markets has picked up this year. Tesla made a splash earlier this week when the company disclosed that it purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and would also begin accepting the currency as a form of payment from customers. That followed a surge in interest for dogecoin, the digital coin that was blessed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on his Twitter page.

Tesla’s move to invest in bitcoin sparked wonders in the investment community if other companies would follow in the carmarker’s footsteps. Earlier Thursday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the topic was discussed but that the company ultimately declined to invest in the digital currency.

Schulman, who appeared alongside Rainey in the “Mad Money” interview, said PayPal grew free cash low by 48% in 2020 to $5 billion. He forecasts the company will generate $10 billion of annual free cash flow by 2025.

PayPal will be a consolidator in the financial technology industry, he said.

“We want to use that cash. We want to use our balance sheet as a strategic weapon,” Schulman said. “That may be returning cash to shareholders and it may be through acquisition, but every one of those dollars matter to us and we really take our capital allocation quite seriously.”

Last month, PayPal made its first acquisition since announcing in late 2019 that it would buy coupon aggregator Honey Science for $4 billion. PayPal took 100% control of the GoPay payment platform, which is based in China, in a deal that closed on Jan. 11.

Is the CEO and Founder of Investors King Limited. He is a seasoned foreign exchange research analyst and a published author on Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Nasdaq, Entrepreneur.com, Investorplace, and other prominent platforms. With over two decades of experience in global financial markets, Olukoya is well-recognized in the industry.

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Holds Above $67,000 Amid Trump Win Bets

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Bitcoin is holding above $67,000 after yesterday’s correction after breaching the $69,000 level and rising to its highest level since late July.

Yesterday’s correction comes after an upward trend that investors are pushing to continue in light of a set of supporting factors, whether from the massive inflows into cryptoinvestment products or from more bets on Donald Trump winning the White House again.

Cryptocurrency investment products recorded massive inflows last week, reaching $2.2 billion, which represents the highest level since last July, with Bitcoin accounting for most of these flows that went to US spot ETFs, according to CoinShares. Net flows to these funds amounted to more than $294 million yesterday alone, according to SoSo Value.

This comes with two weeks left until the US presidential election. While the Polymarket betting market indicates that Republican candidate Trump is likely to win with a 63% probability, the betting site has sparked controversy over who is behind the significant increase in Trump bets. In contrast to Polymarket’s results, the poll average indicates that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is ahead by 48.2% compared to 46.4% for Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight.

While this disparity and fluctuation in polls and predictions is likely to keep cryptocurrencies vulnerable to sharp volatility in the coming days, as the identity of the winner of the White House presidency might shape the future of the industry.

However, the futures market is presenting a mixed story and is questioning the sustainability of Bitcoin’s bullish trend. Bitcoin futures open interest regained its record level of more than $40 billion yesterday, according to CoinGlass, despite the price correction. This correction only resulted in a very small liquidation of the long positions of about $28 million yesterday.

Of that $40 billion, $12.5 billion was on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which also represents a new record high for Bitcoin futures on the US’s largest futures exchange. This reflects the increasing involvement of institutional investors in driving price action.

What is concerning is the decline in the long/short ratio from 1.04 on Sunday to 0.94 today, which may reflect increasing bearish bets in futures market, which in turn may indicate a possible reversal of the bullish trend and a renewal of yesterday’s losses soon.

Written by Samer Hasn, Senior Market Analyst at XS

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Binance Expands Crypto Access in West and Central Africa With Mobile Money Integration

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Binance, the world’s leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider continues to drive innovation and expand access to cryptocurrency in Africa, now allowing users in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Togo and Senegal to purchase crypto directly through mobile money payments enabled through local partnerships. 

This new functionality further strengthens Binance’s commitment to providing simple and secure access to cryptocurrency for users across the continent, reinforcing the platform’s vision of financial inclusion.

Samantha Fuller, Spokeswoman for Binance says “We remain focused on advancing financial inclusion and delivering user-friendly solutions for crypto adoption across Africa. This expansion into West and Central Africa is a significant step in our mission to increase crypto adoption, providing millions of people with more direct access to the global digital economy”.

This new service currently supports only BUY transactions, further simplifying the entry point for new crypto users in these regions, while providing them with a reliable and secure platform to acquire digital assets.

How to buy crypto:

  1. Log in to your Binance app and select [Add Funds] from the homepage.
  2. Choose your local fiat currency you wish to use by selecting the currency in the top-right column.
  3. Follow the instructions to complete your crypto purchase.

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Bitcoin Fails to Hold $63,000 Amid Weak Risk Appetite, Growing Selling Pressure

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Bitcoin remains below $63,000 after failing to hold above it over the past two days while Ethereum is also struggling to reclaim $2,440.

The crypto market has been trading sideways since the beginning of this week.

The cautious moves in the crypto market come amid uncertainty over a range of economic and political factors in the US and geopolitics in the Middle East.

Add to that the potential selling pressure that the US government may exert with its permission to sell around 70,000 Bitcoin.

The Supreme Court has allowed the US Marshals Service to proceed with the sale of 69,370 Bitcoins seized from the Silk Road online store, which would be the largest sale of its kind in history. While the nature and pace of this selling is not yet known, it will not necessarily put downward pressure on prices if it is done in over-the-counter (OTC)
transactions, according to Beincrypto.

As for the economic side, in light of the surprise labor market numbers that were much better than expected and Jerome Powell’s hawkish speech, hopes for a rapid continuation of interest rate cuts this year have diminished. While the relatively high rates remain for a longer period and the continued rise in Treasury bond yields will weaken appetite for risky assets in general, including cryptocurrencies.

Whereas, after the hypothesis of a half-percentage point cut at the next November meeting was the most likely, it has now become excluded in the Fed Fund futures market, and the probability of a quarter-percentage point cut has become 87%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. The remaining 13% is for the possibility of keeping current rates unchanged.

The state of caution may also prevail in the markets in the coming weeks, as we anticipate the presidential elections in the United States, which will begin next month. While the outcome of these elections could cause a structural shift in the crypto industry.

Far away, in the Middle East, markets are still anticipating the nature of the expected escalation in the region, especially regarding the nature of the Israeli response to the unprecedented attack from Iran and the nature of the counter-response. While one of the most prominent scenarios is targeting energy facilities, which would bring inflation back to the forefront, which in turn may require central banks to keep interest rates high.

 

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