PayPal is expanding its crypto ambitions, and it will soon allow merchants in the United States to accept more than 100 different cryptocurrencies as payment, according to Fortune. That means beyond staples like Bitcoin and Ethereum, sellers will soon be able to accept payments in meme-tier tokens, including the controversial Trump memecoin.
PayPal announced the new Pay with Crypto feature on Monday, and it will be rolling out to U.S. merchants in the coming weeks. When a merchant accepts a payment with one of the accepted cryptocurrencies, PayPal will convert the funds into either fiat currency or the company’s PYUSD stablecoin. Pay with Crypto’s 0.99 percent transaction fee is considerably less than typical credit card processing fees.
The company says it’s all part of its mission to “drive crypto payments into the mainstream.” And in interviews with Fortune and Bloomberg, PayPal leaders said the Pay with Crypto feature is designed to help small merchants, in particular.
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“Imagine a shopper in Guatemala buying a special gift from a merchant in Oklahoma City,” said PayPal CEO Alex Chriss in a press release. “Using PayPal’s open platform, the business can accept crypto payments, increase profit margins, lower transaction fees, access funds instantly, and even earn up to 4% APY when storing funds as PYUSD on PayPal.”
With the crypto-enthusiastic Trump administration back in The White House, PayPal is moving fast to address one of digital currency’s core dilemmas: you still can’t buy much with it. Spendability has long been crypto’s Achilles’ heel, which is partly why NFTs briefly took off as a form of “ownership” in the first place.
But with this latest move, PayPal is giving crypto holders a clearer path to using their digital assets for actual purchases, not just speculation. It also coincides with the recent successes of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. In fact, in 2024, the token reached $100,000 per 1 BTC for the first time. As of this writing, a single Bitcoin is valued at approximately $118,000, per Coinbase.
According to PayPal, merchants will be charged a transaction fee of 0.99 percent for the first year, rising to 1.5 percent after that, according to Fortune.
