PayPal CEO Holds Bitcoin and Only Bitcoin

Dan Schulman, CEO of payment processor PayPal, revealed during an interview that he does indeed own Bitcoin (BTC).

On Nov. 20, Fortune reported that PayPal CEO Dan Schulman stopped by its offices where he discussed a variety of topics, including the reason for PayPal’s withdrawal from the Libra Association and whether he is the proud owner of any cryptocurrencies.

PayPal was the first to leave Libra

Schulman explained that PayPal withdrew from Libra because the company decided to put its attention elsewhere. According to the CEO it was a question of “where do we want to put our attention, and what do we want to do today to advance our mission?” He added:

“You know, we think if we focus on our own roadmap, we’d be able to advance financial inclusion faster than if we put all these resources against Libra.”

Schulman added that Libra will start going down a road that his company remains “very interested in looking at,” and once Libra starts to figure things out, “we’ll take another look at where they are.”

At the beginning of October, a PayPal spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the company had officially left the association, adding that they remain supportive of Libra’s aspirations and continue to look forward to dialogue on ways to work together in the future. 

A lot of promise to blockchain technology

PayPal’s CFO John Rainey said in May that the firm has teams that are working on blockchain and cryptocurrency, and that they wish to participate in that technology in whatever form it takes in the future. 

In the Fortune interview, Schulman was reluctant to share any significant details as to what exactly PayPal is working on in the sphere, although he was quick to point out that it is not “necessarily competitive with Libra,” adding:

“We think there’s a lot of promise to blockchain technology. It’s intriguing to us, but it really needs to do something that the traditional rails can’t do. Most people think that blockchain is about efficiency, but the system today is pretty efficient.”

Regarding cryptocurrencies, the CEO said that it is still very volatile, and that they do not have much demand for it by merchants because merchants operate on very small margins. He said:

“Until it becomes less volatile, it won’t be a currency that is widely accepted by merchants on the web — not the dark web, but the web.”

As to whether he owns any cryptocurrencies himself, Schulman’s answer was short and straightforward:

“Yes, Bitcoin. [...] Only.”