Popular bitcoin exchange and wallet service Coinbase (formerly GDAX) has announced a significant milestone: 4 million registered users worldwide. To further lower the barrier to digital currency exchange, the platform has integrated PayPal for bitcoin sales and added credit card purchasing options.
Coinbase and PayPal Integration Details
In its official blog post, Coinbase stated:
“One of our objectives at Coinbase is to add as many funding mechanisms as possible to make exchanging digital currency easy. As a step in that direction, Coinbase now accepts PayPal (for Bitcoin sells) and credit cards (for bitcoin buys). Thousands of Coinbase users use PayPal for their fiat currency transactions around the world. Through this integration, Coinbase users are now able to sell BTC and have their USD funds deposited to a PayPal wallet. To start, we’re offering PayPal cash-out for US users only. In the future, we hope to add support for other countries, and to support buys through PayPal as well.”
The new feature is currently in beta. Users can access it by visiting the payment methods page on Coinbase’s website or tapping “Settings” then “Payment Methods” on iOS or Android. The company will gradually invite more users over the coming weeks alongside international expansion.
PayPal’s Gradual Move into Crypto
PayPal has been slowly embracing the cryptocurrency world. In December 2015, the multinational payment processor filed a patent for cryptocurrency integration within its applications. This collaboration with Coinbase marks another step in that direction.
Coinbase’s Impressive Growth
Founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase has grown into one of the most trusted companies in the space. In 2013, the company sold a record $1 million worth of bitcoin per month. According to Armstrong, Coinbase now stores roughly 10% of all BTC in existence. Beyond bitcoin, Coinbase has also shown support for the Ethereum protocol. Fred Ehrsam wrote on Medium that bitcoin’s scripting language is too restrictive, but he acknowledged the resilience of the Bitcoin network. Coinbase plans to support Ethereum on its GDAX exchange and a variety of digital assets in general, while remaining committed to Bitcoin.
The company invites user feedback on the new PayPal integration via its Community Forum and emphasizes that Bitcoin is changing how we think about money.