Paypal once spun out by its former parent company EBay,has had quite a few growing pains.
-Paypal's longstanding relationship with eBay is changing. eBay announced an agreement with a new payment-processing vendor, and will eventually replace PayPal with a Dutch firm called Adyen as its primary payment processor, more closely integrating payments on its site.
The online marketplace expects to have mostly completed the move by 2021, and PayPal will still be offered as a way to pay at checkout until July 2023.
Uncertainty for PayPal remains very high, primarily as a result of the number of new players in the digital wallet and payment processing space as well.
A range of competitors, from upstarts like Square and Stripe to major tech firms like Apple and Google, are attempting to knock PayPal from the top of the hill.
In other words Paypal has gotten stale at what it does.....and is losing marketshare because of that.
Why create a cryptocurrency then? Or patent one?
Patenting anything...doesn't necessarily mean you're creating it.
I personally think it's a smokescreen of sorts....here's why.
The relatively new management team, under former American Express executive Dan Schulman, are trying to run a modern financial services firm & stay ahead of the curve in this day of age.
If you want something to be "new" & publicized ...what better way than to be part of the "blockchain revolution"
(mind you i don't see them doing a litepay type service soon BUT if they continue losing market share...expect a popular division of Braintree (which Paypal owns) to test those waters.
Who is it?
Venmo. (Yes ..PayPal owns Venmo)
As Ebay is slowly phasing out PayPal as it's main payment processing vendor...Paypal needs to create that lost revenue and free publicity..is always good publicity.
Plus as Venmo is also more popular with millennials ,who also invest in crypto more than any other generation before them.
This might be the entry point for crypto currency in the mainstream ....a payment service that ACCEPTS crypto,might be the biggest winner of all .
Hence why i believe...IF Paypal keeps losing marketshare...it's not a question of IF...just WHEN it will happen.
Great post as always @zer0hedge