Wall Street pushes PayPal’s market cap to new highs on Bitcoin news

Following the close on Wednesday, 21 October, PayPal’s market capitalisation jumped 5.5%, approaching $250bn. In this way the equity market reacted to the news that in 2021 the PayPal-owned mobile-payments service Venmo would add the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin.

PayPal stock performance. Source: Finviz.

The new all-time high for PayPal’s stock price was set at $215.83. The previous high of $212.45 was recorded on September 2 this year.

Since the rise on 21 October, the payments company’s shares have almost doubled year to date (up 96.98%). In terms of market capitalization, PayPal has moved up to 21st among all companies listed on the U.S. stock market.

On 21 October the company announced that in 2021 the PayPal-owned mobile-payments service Venmo would add the ability to buy, sell and store Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin.

The news spurred a Bitcoin rally to push this year’s high above $13,000.

Popular blogger PlanB called the PayPal news ‘a nothingburger’ after examining the site’s FAQ section.

“Cryptocurrencies cannot be transferred to other accounts within PayPal’s system or outside it. They are simply records in the central database of the payment system. Nothing to do with Bitcoin,” he explained.

OK, we can forget this PayPal “news”.

“Crypto in the PayPal account cannot be transferred to other accounts on or off PayPal.”

So, this is all a big PayPal nothing burger, just entries in a central PayPal database, nothing to do with #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/cHGQIEdHaL

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) October 21, 2020

One of Bitcoin’s early adopters, Charlie Shrem, welcomed the news in a tweet recalling events in 2012. At the time he, Roger Ver and Erik Voorhees participated in the Money2020 event and agreed that their booth should be next to PayPal’s to “show the world our financial system”.

It’s 2012. @ErikVoorhees @rogerkver and I decided to pool our money together for the first #Money2020 event. We told them we wanted the best booth we could afford, but we needed to be next to the @PayPal booth so we can show the world OUR financial system!

Welcome, Paypal! pic.twitter.com/5BzvQDfvFb

— Charlie Shrem (@CharlieShrem) October 21, 2020

Rumors of PayPal plans to add cryptocurrency support had circulated for some time. In June it emerged that the payments system and Venmo would offer users a digital-asset trading option within three months.

Earlier in September, the European arm of the BitFlyer announced an integration with PayPal. PayPal account holders could deposit funds in euros to buy cryptocurrencies.

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