Two major fintechs, PayPal and Robinhood are looking place to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Revolut, with plans to permit crypto withdrawals to third party wallets — a measure which could see the platforms intensify their contest with crypto exchanges. Christine Brown, Robinhood Crypto’s newly appointed Chief Operating Officer, told Decrypt the attribute was forthcoming, but stopped short of“setting a deadline,“ adding that it was“a challenging instrument to implement.“ Brown was also quoted as describing that traders will need to be“coddled into understanding that crypto trades are irreversible,“ and educated about the dangers of the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry and the amount of gas fees. She explained:
“We want to make sure that we build an experience – not just the technical foundation of sending and receiving coins, but the user experience around it – that is intuitive, that makes sense, and that reduces risk for our users.”
Brown went on to assert that the upcoming steps could see the stage become“a sort of financial super program,“ like Coinbase, with staking and financing functions also in the pipelines. Meanwhile, PayPal’s blockchain, crypto and electronic currencies business unit direct Jose Fernandez da Ponte, said during Coindesks Consensus occasion:
“We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.”
Da Ponte, like Brown, did not Specify precisely when this new feature would be made available. On Reddit, some users mused the“good news“ might“create PayPal a competitor to Binance and Coinbase“ — especially if the payments giant decided to include support for more altcoins. Revolut last month began allowing its UK-based premium account holders to withdraw bitcoin (BTC) to third party pockets in a beta mode. Withdrawals were initially restricted to just over US$ 700 per day.