Benzinga | Oct 21, 2020 10:29AM EDT

PayPal Brings Bitcoin Trading To Account Holders, Merchants

PayPal Holdings became one of largest companies to bet on cryptocurrency as a payment option Wednesday.

What Happened: Paypal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL) announced it is launching a service to allow users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency.

The company received a conditional Bitlicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Paypal will initially offer access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, with plans to offer additional cryptocurrency options in the future.

Related Link: 3 Small Cap Bitcoin Stocks That Could Benefit From Square's Purchase

Why It's Important: PayPal will make cryptocurrency available as a funding source for purchase at its 26 million merchants worldwide beginning in 2021.

PayPal users will pay no service fees on selling cryptocurrency through the end of 2020, and PayPal is not instituting any fees for holding cryptocurrency in PayPal accounts.

PayPal also said it has plans to expand this feature to Venmo and select international markets beginning in the first quarter of 2021.

Paypal has 346 million active accounts and processed $222 billion in payment volume from 3.7 billion payment transactions in the second quarter.

Earlier this month, Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) bought $50 million in Bitcoin.

CEO Jack Dorsey called Bitcoin the currency of the internet and has put an emphasis on cryptocurrency going forward.

PYPL Price Action: Shares of Paypal were trading 4.21% higher at $210.46 at last check Wednesday.

Bitcoin was trading 6.83% higher on the day at $12,759.92 at last check Wednesday -- a two-month high.