PayPal was originally a Digital Currency

PayPal was originally a digital currency, cofounder Luke Nosek claims. Tellingly, Nosek made the revelation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Many people don’t know this, but the initial mission of PayPal was to create a global currency that was independent of interference by these, you know, corrupt cartels of banks and governments that were debasing their currencies,” Novek says in a video.

Cointelegraph reports Nosek’s remark is a response to a question whether PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) or TenCent’s WeChat Pay should issue a cryptocurrency. Strangely, Nosek does not answer that question.

Are Cryptocurrencies more valuable as payment technologies?

However, Nosek’s remarks expose a major source of value in cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms.

To explain, the payment technology in cryptocurrencies like Ripple (XRP), EOS (EOS),the Bancor Network Token (BNT), the Raiden Network Token (RNT), the DAI (DAI), Dash (DASH), and Einsteinium (EMC2) could be more valuable than the altcoins themselves. In fact, some cryptocurrency organizations could succeed as payment solution providers like PayPal.

Interestingly, Nosek’s comments indicate that PayPal’s founders set out to create a digital currency. They failed but created a lucrative payment application with a lot of value.

PayPal adds 38.7 million accounts 2018

For example, PayPal shares traded at $91.84 on February 4, 2019. In addition, PayPal’s payments platform is a big success.

In fact, PayPal added 38.7 million accounts in 2018, Business Insider calculates. Therefore, PayPal’s user base grew by 17% during 2018.

Thus PayPal had 267 million customers in December 2018. Impressively, PayPal added 13.8 million accounts during 4^th Quarter 2018.

Moreover, PayPal’s payment volume hit $164 billion in 4^th Quarter 2018, Business Insider estimates. Hence, PayPal’s payment volume grew by 32% between 4^th Quarter 2017 and 4^th Quarter 2018.

Impressively, the number of transactions made by each PayPal customer is up 9% to 36.9 transactions per customers. Therefore, PayPal processed 2.9 billion payment transactions during 2018.

Venmo is Still Growing a like Weed

Tellingly, PayPal’s peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution, Venmo is still growing like a weed.

For instance, Venmo payments now comprise 12% of PayPal’s total payment volume. Moreover, Venmo’s payment volume grew by 80% during 2018. In fact, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman predicts Venmo’s payment volume will top $100 billion 2019.

PayPal’s success indicates the digital payments business is booming. Under those circumstances, the value of all payments technologies including cryptocurrency is likely to increase.

Therefore, PayPal demonstrates that cryptocurrency’s main value is a payments technology. Hence, many blockchain platforms could become lucrative companies even if cryptocurrency itself is a bust.