Paypal and Bitcoin

[ffutures]

Is it only me that is worried that PayPal has suddenly started trying to trade Bitcoin to its customers?

Fortunately eBay's new payment system (which puts the proceeds of sales into my bank account, not PayPal) means that my PayPal balance is dropping - I'm buying things with it and putting very little in, and won't worry about changing that until the balance drops a good deal more. Actually, "fortunately" may be the wrong word, the big drop in income PayPal must be seeing because of this change may be a big part of the reason they've decided to go for the "destined to be screwed by quantum computing" market...

Comments

[dewline]

I think you are not alone in being worried about this development.

If we get to the point where IRS, CRA, HMRC etc. also accept Bitcoin, then we might consider it "safe enough".

[ffutures]

I don't think they're planning to make it compulsory that you use Bitcoin, which would be my signal to leave - but it does make me less inclined to leave my money in their hands.

[vicarage]

I try to avoid companies that accept Bitcoin. I use PayPal perhaps once a year, and its just a conduit to my credit card.

[ffutures]

I took a look at the bit of PayPal that's been added and so far as I can determine they are simply transferring funds to and from Bitcoin (and three other cryptocurrencies) and charging a fee for doing it, not taking or giving it as normal payments. A nice touch is that they show a graph for each of the currencies, and all of them are trending downward - really not encouraging. I really wish they weren't doing it at all, because I prefer not to do business with bookies, but there are still enough advantages to using PayPal (rather than cards or bank details) that I don't want to rule out using it completely - I'll just steer clear of the idiot corner.