Novogratz calls PayPal’s Bitcoin news 'the shot heard around the world on Wall Street’

Galaxy Digital CEO and multi-millionaire Mike Novogratz recently hopped on CNBC Squawk Box for an interview, detailing the importance of PayPal's Bitcoin launch. 

"I think that's, in some ways, the shot heard around the world on Wall Street," Novogratz said in an Oct. 23 interview about PayPal's recent news. "PayPal has 346 million accounts," he said, adding: "They're the 30th biggest bank in the U.S. in deposits and all of a sudden every financial institution says, 'Wait a minute, what am I doing?'"

PayPal unveiled the addition of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash to its network on Oct. 21. Following the announcement of these plans, Bitcoin surged in price, ultimately overtaking the market cap of PayPal itself. 

"If you're in the board room at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs or Bank of America, you're thinking, 'How do I get engaged?'" Novogratz said of crypto. Prior to his interview, the CEO said he took a peak at stock performances for companies involved in crypto, as well as Ethereum's price. He pointed out that such assets have posted standout price gains in 2020.

"We are going to see, over the next 10 years, a rebuilding of the financial infrastructure of this country," Novogratz said. "It was interesting that PayPal hired Paxos to do their integration with crypto because there's a domain expertise in this cryptocurrency space, in this blockchain space, that's needed." Paxos serves as the entity behind PAX, one of the many U.S. dollar-pegged stable coins in the crypto industry. The institution also touts other functions, such as custody.

"It was the COVID virus that really accelerated — as horrible as that sounds — accelerated adoption of crypto on two ways: the macro story with Bitcoin and the more maybe important story of digitalization of all cash, digitalization of the financial services system, that's going to mostly be built on Ethereum."

Multiple traditional financial players have picked up large stacks of Bitcoin this year, seemingly ushering in an age of mainstream Bitcoin adoption.

UPDATE Oct. 29, 15:43 UTC: This article has been updated, correcting information on PayPal's crypto launch details.