3 years ago
130 An announcement by PayPal today confirmed industry news reports of acquiring cryptocurrency-storage technology provider, Curv. The Israeli crypto-security startup will be the latest acquisition for PayPal to begin the domination of alternate digital currency transfers for financial institutions.
PayPal building crypto products Domination
Where PayPal will be benefitted from Curv’s acquisition is in building a leadership position in Curv’s sophistication is the technology it has developed to store crypto assets securely. Operations are cloud-based hence crypto wallets are accessed without hardware. Organizations that are transiting into crypto assets now have the security features they are seeking. They can implement digital policies that are permission-driven, create allowed lists for transactions to be regularized, due to Curv’s technology sophistication.
Curv relies on its pioneering multi-party computation method to handle private keys for a sophistication that is yet new to crypto-transactions industry practices. Cryptographic ‘secrets’ are generated on the device and Curv’s servers at the time of creating a wallet. Therefore, when a transaction is initiated, multiple secrets are generated for the full public key and private key.
These secrets are regularly rotated such that one single secret match will not be sufficient to complete the transaction. Thus the security of each transaction is through encrypted key matches.
Since Curv supports service providers such as exchanges brokers, over-the-counter crypto exchange desks, PayPal should offer a niche area of service for the medium and large-sized financial institutions which receive or pay in large cryptocurrency amounts.
Cryptocurrency transactions to grow
Cryptocurrency transactions are expected to grow at phenomenal speeds in the coming years. PayPal is laying the groundwork to support end-to-end cryptocurrency transactions. From big financial institutions to buying and selling of products using cryptocurrency is the chartered growth plan as per PayPal’s latest earnings release.
It is already incubating such services spectrum with its super app for fin technology consumption – Venmo app.
In the US, many crypto-based services are already made available because of PayPal’s collaboration with Paxos. In October 2021, PayPal account holders in the US have been holding, selling, and buying cryptocurrencies using the Paxos cryptocurrency platform for trading and custody. PayPal has plans to expand the same to other countries as well.
Hence, PayPal’s collaboration with Paxos has taken away the biggest hurdle for individuals who want to make everyday purchases using cryptocurrencies – the process of converting cryptocurrencies on exchanges. The nearly 26 million merchants on PayPal will find no difference if their customers pay in crypto since their transactions are settled by conversion into fiat currencies automatically.
PayPal has already built the ecosystem for legalizing these transactions by obtaining a ‘conditional’ BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services. Hence, Curv’s acquisition will launch PayPal into a sophisticated crypto-storage and access services spectrum thereby ensuring crypto-transactions on a daily basis becomes easier for the common user.
