In the realm of digital assets integrating with mainstream financial services, PayPal has unveiled an innovative platform called Pay with Crypto that lets merchants accept payments in over 100 cryptocurrencies.

Inclusive, Borderless Commerce

Through this service, consumers can connect their existing crypto wallets from major platforms such as Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Kraken, and OKX. This opens the door for access to a market of approximately 650 million crypto users. Initially, Pay with Crypto will be available to all U.S. users except those in New York.

Addressing Cross-Border Payment Inefficiencies

The impetus behind PayPal’s launch is to tackle the inefficiencies associated with cross-border payments, which often suffer from delays and high fees. The platform will charge merchants a 0.99% transaction fee on crypto payments—a rate PayPal claims is 90% lower than the typical credit card processing fee.

Integrating with Global Wallet Systems

This crypto launch follows closely after another cross-border-focused solution, PayPal World, was unveiled last week. With PayPal World, users from PayPal and Venmo wallets can connect to leading global wallets such as India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI), China’s WeChat Pay, and potentially Latin America’s Mercado Pago.

This means that PayPal and Venmo users can send payments to users of these other systems—even if the recipient does not have a PayPal account—and vice versa. While currently two separate systems, Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal, emphasized how both launches represent the future of inclusive, borderless commerce.

Benefits for Merchants

The crypto payments through Pay with Crypto offer several benefits to merchants, including accepting crypto payments without exposure to volatility. Additionally, PYUSD, PayPal’s stablecoin, plays a pivotal role in these transactions by converting all payments into PYUSD or fiat currency at checkout.

PYUSD was launched about two years ago but has seen its market cap increase roughly 80% since the start of the year due to this integration. While it faces competition from other stablecoins, such as Tether and a new one by Stripe, PYUSD offers merchants an attractive yield when held on PayPal.

In a statement, Chriss highlighted that merchants can accept crypto payments for increased profit margins, pay lower transaction fees, gain near-instant access to proceeds, and earn a 4% yield on funds stored as PYUSD when kept on PayPal.