PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) has confirmed earlier investigations about its exploration of stablecoins in line with its broader crypto strategy.
The investigation in question was initiated by Steve Moser, an iOS app developer and Editor-In-Chief at The Tape Drive, where he posted the following statement:
“Evidence hidden inside of PayPal’s iOS app has revealed that PayPal is working on a coin called PayPal Coin” adding as a decription that “The PayPal Coin logo looks like PayPal’s logo but with two horizontal lines through it.”
The evidence also suggests that Paypal is working to either integrate or incorporate Neo (formerly Antshares), an open-source decentralized blockchain dapp platform, whose logo was found alongside Paypal’s currently supported cryptos: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. As of press time, PayPal currently only supports these four cryptocurrencies on its app. It will be interesting to see how the overall market responds to this. What impact, if any, it has on other markets is yet to be seen.
Having found this set of evidences, Moser shared the information with Bloomberg News, which later contacted PayPal in its capacity as a news organization, to confirm details on the matter.
“We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, SVP of Crypto and Digital Currencies at PayPal, said in a statement to Bloomberg News.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are underpinned and priced by the value of an existing fiat currency or commodity. They are designed to provide price stability, acting as a hedge against the largely volatile nature of cryptocurrencies. Accordingly, this corporate move by PayPal affirms how cryptocurrencies have become an integral part of the existing global financial system.
According to a PayPal spokeswoman, the images and code found by Moser inside PayPal’s iOS app were made from a recent internal hackathon, where its engineers have been exploring new products for testing and later release. These were done within the company’s blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies division, and hence do not represent anything final for a live release.
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