On Wednesday (October 21), payments firm PayPal announced how it is planning to support cryptocurrencies. This article examines the reactions to this news from some of the prominent members of the crypto community.
Most people in the crypto community welcomed PayPal’s entry into the crypto space and saw this announcement as the most important piece of news, as far as crypto is concerned, so far this year.
This is based on the belief that PayPal — which is estimated to have around 346 million active accounts worldwide — could help to increase mainstream awareness/adoption of cryptoassets in general (and not just help Bitcoin).
First, let’s look at tweets from some of the people who were thrilled with PayPal’s announcement.
Michael Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs partner, as well as Founder, Chairman, and CEO of crypto-focused merchant bank Galaxy Digital:
Stephen Palley, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Anderson Kill, where he chairs the Technology, Media & Distributed Systems practice group:
Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder and President of digital asset exchange Gemini:
Ryan Selkis, Co-Founder and CEO at Messari:
However, there were some dissenting voices that objected to PayPal’s “walled garden approach”, saying that PayPal not giving its users access to private keys and/or not allowing crypto transfers to other PayPal accounts or in/out of PayPal meant that PayPal’s offering is not “real crypto” (in the way envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin).
Below are a few examples of these voices.
Jameson Lopp, CTO at Casa, who — in a way — echoed Andreas Antonopoulos’ famous saying “not your keys, not your bitcoin”:
Jake Chervinsky, General Counsel at Compound:
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO at Ripple:
