PayPal’s global payments provider doubled its previous crypto volume record, with digital assets worth $242 million changing hands on the network since January11.
Yesterday’s trade dwarfed PayPal’s previous volume high of $129 million registered on January 6, according to crypto market data aggregator Nomics. Daily value has grown by 950 percent since January 1 from $22.8.
With the rise in the amount of PayPal occurring in the midst of the surge of Bitcoin into new all-time highs, the U.S.-based payment company seems to be growing rapidly among retail traders. According to cointelegraph.com, Alex Saunders of Nuggets News asserted that the rise in the amount of PayPal is a possible indication of increasing adoption by retail traders, tweeting: “Retail has arrived.”
While many in the crypto community applaud the introduction of PayPal into crypto for driving new users to digital assets, some have criticized PayPal for developing a “gated” crypto community that does not accept withdrawal functions, with Twitter user Toomas Zobel speculating that the volume spike could have resulted from retail capitulation: “Is there a way to view whether this was buy or sell volume? In this huge dump, it may just be retail sellers capitulating rather than creating buying pressure.”
Shortly after Nexo CEO Antoni Trenchev suggested that Bitcoin’s latest drop from levels exceeding $40,000 was caused by institutional buyers racing to realize profits, the discussions about whether PayPal’s volume milestone is bullish or bearish came.
