Global payments giant PayPal’s entry into cryptocurrencies has been considered one of the major milestones for the crypto industry. It was one of the core factors that fuelled bitcoin’s massive rally earlier this year. Now, the payments company might be looking to deepen its roots in the industry as reports suggest it might acquire a crypto storage start-up.
Various reports are now claiming that PayPal might be secretly in talks with crypto storage start-up Curv. However, the information is hardly a secret anymore as it has been spreading like wildfire. Some sources familiar with the matter have estimated the valuation of the deal to be 500 million, which is significantly higher than what Curv was reportedly hoping for, which was around $200-$300 million.
PayPal’s interest in the startup can be justified by the fact that Curv has developed an encryption technology based on multi-party computation that secures digital assets and enables the secure transfer Store and any digital asset management on any blockchain.
Basically, this technology allows wallets on Curv’s platform to generate private keys at different points simultaneously. These can then be distributed between the cloud and the client, eliminating possibilities of single points of failure.
With this acquisition, PayPal could enhance the security of its crypto services. This could also allow the payments giant to develop its own cryptocurrency custody solution, thus reducing costs over the long run.
However, it must be noted that there has been no official statement from either of the companies.
Expanding Crypto services
PayPal hasn’t looked back ever since it enabled cryptocurrency services on its platform in collaboration with Paxos. It then went on to expand these crypto services to Venomo after its limited crypto launch “exceeded expectations.”
A survey conducted by Mizuho Securities reported that by the end of 2020, one-fifth of all PayPal users had some exposure to Bitcoin and 65% of PayPal users were interested in crypto.
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As previously reported by The Daily Chain, PayPal CEO also announced his plans to invest in a new crypto, blockchain, and digital currencies business unit to help shape this more inclusive future. The business unit is expected to launch by the end of this quarter.
