PayPal Enables Crypto Transfers to External Wallets, Exchanges

The fintech giant first enabled crypto buying and selling in late 2020, but users couldn’t transfer their assets to third-party wallets

article-image

SOURCE: SHUTTERSTOCK

share

key takeaways

  • Select US users can transfer bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin to other wallets and exchanges
  • Sending crypto outside of PayPal carries a fee determined by network congestion

PayPal users can now transfer cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ether to third-party wallets and exchanges, nearly two years after the payments giant opened up its platform to digital assets, the company announced on Tuesday.

Currently available to select US users, the feature will be extended to eligible US customers in the coming weeks, according to the announcement.

The San Jose, California-based company first began allowing customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin in October 2020. But they had no option to move out their holdings from the platform to crypto wallets such as MetaMask and Electrum, or exchanges such as Coinbase.

This feature was one of the most requested updates since the purchase of cryptocurrencies were allowed, PayPal said, and executives had been discussing its implementation for a year.

Now users will be able to move their cryptocurrency from PayPal to other crypto addresses, including hardware wallets — and send crypto to family and friends for free within the same payments network. Sending cryptocurrency outside of PayPal carries a fee, which may fluctuate depending on network congestion.

The fintech giant first enabled crypto buying and selling in late 2020, but users couldn’t transfer their assets to third-party wallets

The capability still applies only to bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin.

PayPal’s announcement carries weight, as the fintech giant has more than 426 million active users who use the network to transfer money around the world and to make payments to merchants.

In March last year, PayPal rolled out the ability for US customers to use crypto as a form of payment to merchants using its “Checkout with Crypto” service. 

“We will continue to roll out additional crypto features, products, and services in the months ahead,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, said in a statement.

Dan Schulman, PayPal’s president and CEO, revealed last year the firm’s crypto capabilities will expand into the use of central bank digital currencies and smart contracts. 

Some of PayPal’s revenue stems from crypto purchases made on its platform, but the exact amount isn’t clear because the company excludes this figure from its total payment volume.

Venmo, a popular payments app owned by PayPal, supports the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies but doesn’t yet have the ability to transfer them externally. 

As for Robinhood, the trading app rolled out a beta version of its crypto wallet to 1,000 customers that allowed them to transfer digital assets to other crypto wallets for the first time in January. It later opened the feature to 2 million more “eligible” users — excluding those in New York, Hawaii and Nevada, due to regulatory hurdles.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday