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PayPal has gone all in on crypto.
The payments giant has launched Pay with Crypto, a feature that lets merchants accept more than one hundred digital currencies and settle in either fiat currency or PYUSD, the company’s own stablecoin.
In an interview with TheStreet Roundtable's Jackson Hinkle, May Zabaneh, head of crypto at PayPal, said the company is building a bridge between traditional payments and the new world of digital assets.
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“We are super excited about Pay with Crypto,” she said. “It allows merchants to accept more than one hundred cryptocurrencies across multiple wallets. They can settle in fiat or in PYUSD, which gives them access to a global crypto user base and lowers their processing costs.”
For merchants, that means cheaper transactions and access to hundreds of millions of potential customers. For users, it means their crypto holdings finally have more utility.
“It connects all those customers who already have crypto with our merchant base,” Zabaneh explained. “It is a real use case of how to bring together traditional payments and crypto payments.”
She also confirmed that merchants can hold cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum natively, and that PayPal is offering rewards for both consumer and merchant holders of PYUSD.
The stablecoin market now stands at around $312 billion in total market capitalization, with roughly $146.6 billion in 24-hour trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. PYUSD, PayPal’s U.S. dollar–backed stablecoin, has climbed to a market cap of about $3.32 billion, meaning PayPal now controls just over 1% of the entire stablecoin supply — a clear sign that its crypto push is starting to show up in on-chain numbers.
A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to keep its value pegged to a stable asset — usually the U.S. dollar — so it doesn’t swing in price like Bitcoin or other tokens.
It’s meant to behave like digital cash, offering the speed of crypto with the stability of fiat.
“We are giving both sides of our network the ability to earn and spend,” she said. “We start by asking what matters most to merchants and consumers, and we build from there.”
Most importantly, Pay with Crypto seamlessly integrates with familiar user interfaces. At any merchant that accepts PayPal at checkout, crypto can be used instead of fiat.
For a industry known for extreme technical complexity, poor user experience and fraud, this allows undereducated consumers to use crypto in a secure and understandable fashion.
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"With our PayPal checkout, our branded button that you see on millions and millions of merchants, today you can actually use your crypto and pay at those merchants," Zabaneh stated. "You're already starting to see the use cases emerge, and so we're really excited."
She believes Pay with Crypto signals the next phase of PayPal’s evolution, one where digital assets are a standard part of how money moves.
