Venmo Crypto Transfers Coming in May

Crypto transfers on Venmo are on the way, PayPal announced Friday during Consensus 2023.

Venmo customers will be able to transfer their crypto to friends natively on the app, and will also be able to move their digital holdings to external wallets and exchanges, according to a statement from PayPal. External transfers will be subject to network fees, PayPal told Blockworks.

The four accepted cryptocurrencies on Venmo are bitcoin, ether, litecoin and bitcoin cash.

PayPal will bring this feature, which has been available on its platform since June 2022, to Venmo “over the coming weeks starting in May 2023,” according to the statement.

This announcement comes a little over two years after Venmo first allowed crypto on its platform in April 2021. Now that the popular payments platform allows transfers of digital assets, an estimated 90 million Venmo users now have the ability to send or receive crypto. 

PayPal, Venmo’s parent company, integrated crypto on its platform back in October 2020. The company also has a penchant for making crypto-related announcements at Consensus.

PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto and digital currencies Jose Fernandez da Ponte said he welcomes competition from players such as MoonPay and Robinhood Connect, which is another fiat-to-crypto on-ramp that was launched by the financial services company on Thursday.

“Absolutely we are in competition…that’s the beauty of free markets. I’m a competitive person, and I want to beat the people in the market,” da Ponte told Blockworks at Consensus. “Consumers and merchants need choice and there should be more options to get fiat into crypto and it should be us.”

At last year’s conference, Blockworks reported that da Ponte said he was excited about the potential of NFTs, stablecoins and digital identity. This year, he reiterated his interest in NFTs specifically, saying that he thinks “the rumors about the death of NFTs have been greatly exaggerated.” 

“I have enough gray hair to have been through a couple of these winters,” he quipped.

Katherine Ross contributed reporting.

Updated April 28, 2023 at 12:38 pm ET: Added comment from Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto and digital currencies.

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