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PayPal (PYPL) CEO and President Dan Schulman took the stage on the first day of the main Web Summit event on Wednesday, telling an estimated 100,000 attendees that “the time is now” for cryptocurrency.
Interviewed by New York Times columnist Andrew Ross-Sorkin for the 2020 online tech conference, Schulman anticipated that digital currencies will soon enter the mainstream and become a daily payment tool. The global coronavirus pandemic has accelerated various trends, such as consumers “ditching cash,” he said.
The coronavirus pandemic “has continued these trends for three to five years [and] five to six months, “according to Schulman.
“I think if you can create a financial system, new and modern technology that is faster, cheaper, more efficient, it’s good for bringing more people into the system, for inclusion, to help reduce costs, to helping drive financial health for so many people … So in the long run, I’m very optimistic about digital currencies of all kinds. “
PayPal announced in October that it will begin allowing users to transact cryptocurrency as a funding tool among 28 million merchants early next year. The company is already allowing customers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies within the PayPal wallet, starting with the US Schulman said the company conducted market research ahead of time which showed 54% of the PayPal wanted the crypto offers.
“As we thought, digital wallets are a natural complement to digital currencies. We have over 360 million digital wallets and we need to embrace cryptocurrencies,” said the CEO of PayPal.
Bitcoin’s volatility had previously been Schulman’s main concern, prompting him to view it as a “poor form of currency” with the potential to wipe out small traders’ profits. To address this issue, PayPal will allow consumers to know the exact exchange rate of cryptocurrencies at the time of purchase, eliminating the risk of volatility.
“It strengthens the usefulness of that underlying cryptocurrency, and you can do more with it than ride the ups and downs of it,” he said. “In fact, you take it as a tool to conduct trade with our 28 million merchants.”
Schulman was joined in the session by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
