When you thought 2022 would end on a low note for cryptocurrency, we finally got some good news for once. PayPal and MetaMask developer ConsenSys are working together to integrate PayPal into MetaMask to make it easier to buy cryptocurrency seamlessly using your PayPal account.
I know the feelings many have towards PayPal (myself included), but PayPal is one of the biggest payment services, and this is a huge win for cryptocurrency adoption. The integration aims to enable users to select their PayPal accounts as a payment option to buy ether (ETH) from within the MetaMask app.
In the press release, ConsenSys product manager Lorenzo Santos says:
"This integration with PayPal will allow our U.S. users to not just buy crypto seamlessly through MetaMask, but also to easily explore the Web3 ecosystem,"
This isn't the first time PayPal has adopted crypto. It launched its "purchase, sell and hold service" in October 2020 and June 2022; they allowed transfers between PayPal and a few popular crypto exchanges. Once upon a time, companies like PayPal were at odds with crypto, but now they seem to be embracing it.
It would be great to see PayPal make their integration functionality developer-friendly, allowing other wallets like Hive Keychain to allow PayPal integration. Given the restricted rollout, that probably won't happen until it is more widely available.
Sadly this integration is only being rolled out in the U.S. first. Presumably due to AML/KYC laws surrounding cryptocurrency. I hope that PayPal rolls this out to other regions in the coming months, particularly in Australia and parts of Asia where cryptocurrency is quite popular.
It's funny to think that this kind of news would once be enough to cause the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to skyrocket. Although, Bitcoin is slowly edging back to $18k again, so who knows.