PayPal may soon be foraying much deeper into the bitcoin sector, potentially by creating standalone bitcoin based products or by extending its bitcoin payment options even further. The prediction is based on PayPal’s latest decision to include Wences Casares to its board.
Wences Casares is an Argentinean Bitcoin entrepreneur and the founder of Xapo, a well known bitcoin wallet and vault services provider. He has been around in the bitcoin sphere for a while now and he has had multiple highly successful ventures in the past.His earlier venture, Lemon digital wallet was acquired by LifeLock in 2014 for a sum of $42.6 million.
PayPal introduced bitcoin payment options for merchants selling digital goods in late 2014. For a company that disrupted online payments and money transfer industry, Wences Casares will prove to be a valuable addition. With his inclusion into the board, the number of PayPal board members has gone up to nine.
TechCrunch, a well known technology and startup magazine has quoted the President and CEO of PayPal – Dan Schulman saying “Wences’ unique line of sight into the future of commerce is ideally aligned with PayPal’s vision of transforming the management and movement of money for people across the globe.”
Bitcoin is already known to offer the most time and cost efficient money transfer method across the world. The cost of processing bitcoin payments at present is less than the transaction fee charged by PayPal for the transfer of fiat currency between users. PayPal’s solutions are available for both individuals as well as businesses.
Paypal can potentially reduce the transaction costs even further by using blockchain technology to power its money transfer service. Traditional banks are already exploring this option by creating a consortium, working towards building a dedicated blockchain network facilitating fund transfer between banks.