Pay How You Want
Author: PYUSD (Paypal)
Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Money, Payment, and Freedom
Digital Payment Revolution
The New Gap: PayPal, Cryptocurrency, and the New Financial Track
PayPal, Payment, and PYUSD
Payment, as You Wish
Money is not powerful when accumulated; it is powerful when in motion.
Every day, billions of transactions occur worldwide, and payments are the most tangible and frequent use of currency. However, payments are not just a means of exchanging value; they are a story about progress and freedom.
Every transaction we make – from buying coffee to transferring funds overseas – is a manifestation of our financial autonomy. On the other hand, the inability to pay the way we want limits our ability to build, share, and leverage value on our own terms.
PayPal emerges at a critical juncture in the history of payments. Since the early days of e-commerce, we have positioned ourselves as a beacon of trust, providing users with the confidence to transact in a powerful yet challenging new ecosystem. Now, over a decade after the emergence of blockchain technology, PayPal once again faces new challenges at a crucial moment in payment history. Just as we brought payments online, we are now bringing payments onto the chain.
Our commitment throughout our tenure remains unchanged: to promote payment innovation and enable everyone to pay as they wish.
The latest structural shift in payments has emerged with the rise of the internet.
As a vast amount of information moves online, the mechanisms for tracking and managing funds have also shifted – from account balances and transaction histories to broader commercial activities. This thriving e-commerce ecosystem sets new expectations for how transactions are conducted.
The current demand is for the same immediacy and borderless payments that people seek in their daily online interactions.
This digital transformation highlights a new gap that has emerged. While the internet provides the infrastructure for global business, there is a noticeable lack of reliable and efficient online payment systems. People are looking for a platform that is not only secure but also fast and intuitive. Businesses need a reliable platform that resonates within a growing online customer base.
PayPal bridges the gap between the new digital financial track and the urgent consumer needs for trust and accessibility. We have built an ecosystem that fulfills people’s desire to pay globally in a flexible and secure manner.
Today, PayPal has over 40 million active accounts, proving that its success is not just the result of identifying market gaps.
This is about our unwavering commitment to making payments easier. For decades, despite the development of the internet and other financial technology tools, our focus has remained unchanged. From early efforts to facilitate eBay transactions to the acquisition of Venmo in 2013, our trajectory has been defined by one question: how do people want to pay?
We have spent decades answering this question. At the highest level, the answer remains quite simple: people want fast, cheap global payments. Despite efforts in the digital payment space to provide global, instant, and seamless transactions, the reality often falls short.
Until now, payment innovation has been built on the same foundational financial track as the rise of the internet. In fact, “instant” settlement and “24/7” service are often achieved as a convenience through services that accept (or transfer) risk.
Settlement times for online payments are still long (2-3 days on average in the US). Markets, banks, and services operate during working hours, further prolonging settlement times. Employers struggle to pay an increasingly dispersed workforce. A globally mobile population finds it difficult to remit money across borders quickly and affordably. Businesses often feel this friction, while consumers still face long settlement times in some payment environments they expect to be fast.
In short, people today may not necessarily be able to pay the way they want.
So, why are we turning our attention to Crypto? The answer is: it is practical.
Cryptocurrency brings us closer to people’s desires: fast, cheap global payments. And, as we have said before, we are in the business of payments.
Blockchain is the new financial track – the new payment track. Blockchain technology disrupts the external and operational aspects of payments. For customers and businesses, settlement times are almost instant – anytime, anywhere.
This is significant, as blockchain technology is the only technology that offers a completely new way of making payments. While it may appear trendy to some, for PayPal, blockchain seems rational.
If there is a payment tool that can provide round-the-clock, almost instant, and cost-effective transactions, exploring that solution is a practical choice. This is not about following trends; it is about whether we can identify and adopt an alternative, potentially better financial technology for payments.
Once again, PayPal finds itself with the opportunity to bridge the gap between the new payment track and its widespread adoption and trust. With 40 million accounts, we can better serve our customers by offering additional options through blockchain-based payment solutions. Just as we did in the early days of e-commerce, PayPal is once again moving towards a single goal: allowing you to pay as you wish.
In 2020, we allowed PayPal and Venmo users to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency in their accounts. Last year, users could start transferring the cryptocurrency assets they purchased in their accounts to external wallets, including decentralized wallets.
We envision PayPal and Venmo continuing to be key hubs for commerce, the primary channels for businesses and individuals to transact goods and services. By allowing the transfer of cryptocurrency assets between PayPal and Venmo accounts, we are better connecting the DeFi and CeFi worlds through a platform that excels at facilitating payments.
Our view of blockchain and cryptocurrency is neutral – that is, we have no ideological bias in this competition.
We know that customers still want easier, faster, and cheaper payments; we know that blockchain achieves these types of payments in a way that today’s internet financial track does not; we believe that customers should choose to adopt new solutions to meet their potential needs.
However, we do have a subjective stance on stablecoins. We believe they are essential tools for fully realizing the ability of cryptocurrencies to be an accessible and flexible payment tool. PYUSD issued by Paxos is our position in the stablecoin field. This is our commitment to customers. We are doing what we have been doing since 1998: providing our customers with what they want.
What our customers want is easier payments. Businesses want to pay suppliers without worrying about settlement times. Individuals want to remit money to family members without high fees and waiting days. Today’s financial infrastructure cannot quickly meet customers’ needs for fast transactions, and we do not want customers to lose value in this waiting process.
Today, blockchain technology is the only innovation that provides a completely new payment track to meet customer needs. We have always strived to be pioneers in one aspect: always providing our customers with what they want and deserve – trust, confidence, and ease. PYUSD is just the next evolution towards this goal.
At PayPal, we have always believed that the essence of currency lies in its flow, and fast, cheap, and global flow of funds is what our customers seek. PayPal’s history is a story of this steadfast commitment: enabling individuals and businesses to transact on their own terms. We believe that cryptocurrency creates a new paradigm that helps achieve payment goals worldwide.
In other words, we think it’s simple: paying with cryptocurrency means paying as you wish.