Paypal bought up to 70 percent of all the newly mined bitcoin since the payments giant started offering cryptocurrency services four weeks ago.
Now that’s according to estimates by hedge fund manager Pantera Capital, as revealed in its latest monthly blockchain letter. Together with Square’s Cash App, the two companies are buying more than 100 percent of all newly issued virgin bitcoin (BTC), it says.
The letter said demand for Paypal’s crypto service, which runs on Paxos fiat-to-crypto exchange, Itbit, had hit the roof. The exchange “was doing a fairly constant amount of trading volume… [but] when Paypal went live, volume started exploding,” it observed, adding:
“The increase in Itbit volume implies that within four weeks of going live, Paypal is already buying almost 70% of the new supply of bitcoins.”
Paypal announced in late October that its customers – running in excess of 300 million active users – will now be able to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and other digital assets using their Paypal accounts.
The decision also meant users could use their coins to buy things from the 26 million merchants that accept Paypal, it said. Paypal rolled out the crypto service to U.S. customers early this month, with the rest of the world set to be integrated later.
Bitcoin prices rose alongside the Paypal news, breaching $12,000 at the time the service was announced, and has maintained the bullish momentum ever since, hitting a three-year high of $18,997 on Nov. 20.