In brief

  • BitFlyer Europe has announced that customers can now deposit cryptocurrencies on its platform using PayPal.
  • The integration serves to further remove barriers to entry for bitFlyer’s European users.
  • The company is the European subsidiary of one of the oldest and biggest Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer announced today that its European users can now deposit funds and buy tokens using their PayPal accounts. It's already possible to buy Bitcoin with PayPal, but this is opening PayPal payments to a whole new range of cryptocurrencies.

Other cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly been working with PayPal to integrate their services with the leading fiat payment platform, and Coinbase enables withdrawals via the payment provider. The bitFlyer integration is one of the first to officially enable the purchase of cryptocurrencies—a potential boon for adoption. 

It also makes PayPal one of the most prominent mainstream companies to offer cryptocurrency in Europe. In the US, publicly-traded, mainstream payments provider Square and stock brokerage Robinhood already offer integration with cryptocurrency services. 

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The integration means that PayPal users—the payment provider has a 35% market share—can now easily deposit funds to the bitFlyer Europe platform to almost instantly buy cryptocurrency. The new service will go a long way to removing barriers to entry, providing an alternative to money transfers—which can take up to three days for deposits to clear.

"Given that approximately a third of European e-commerce payments are being processed through PayPal, we are more than thrilled to provide users with a deposit method they know and rely upon,” said Jacek Bastin, business strategy manager at bitFlyer Europe.

The company is owned by the Japanese parent company bitFlyer—one of the world’s longest-standing cryptocurrency exchanges. It boasts that it’s the only cryptocurrency exchange to be licensed in Japan, the US and Europe combined. Its recent survey revealed that its European customers were invested in cryptocurrencies for the longterm.  

cryptocurrency survey results
The percentage of consumers who believe cryptocurrencies will still exist in 10 years’ time. SOURCE: bitFlyer

The exchange enabled trading Ethereum and Bitcoin last month for European and US customers, following the launch of its Buy/Sell platform. BitFlyer also said it’s launching several coins in the coming months.

But it’s PayPal’s next move that the industry will be watching most keenly.

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