surprise good news for bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general

 PayPal is stepping up its crypto push. Coins can now be transferred between wallets and exchanges.

Plans to allow consumers to migrate their crypto holdings to third-party wallets have been in the works since 2021, according to PayPal crypto CEO Jose Fernandez da Ponte.

Since the fintech giant's crypto buy, sell, and hold service went live in October 2020, cryptocurrency holders have been clamoring for the ability to transfer their digital assets off its platform to rival wallets and exchanges.

Other prominent financial businesses are following the trend of moving away from regimented custodial platforms and toward more open systems, such as popular trading app Robinhood, which is launching a new crypto wallet focused on decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal's senior vice president of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies, claimed plans to enable consumers move their coins to third-party wallets were in the works at CoinDesk's virtual Consensus event in 2021.

In an interview last week, da Ponte stated that "we are clearly responding to user demand." We've also been clear from the start that we're in this because we're a payments and commerce firm, and we believe our purpose in the ecosystem is to expand access.

According to a blog post, the option to move bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), and litecoin (LTC) from PayPal's crypto platform to external wallets is accessible to certain U.S. users (not in Hawaii) starting Tuesday and will roll out to all qualified U.S. customers in the coming weeks.

When PayPal originally announced its foray into digital assets, it appeared to kick-start a bull run in the cryptocurrency markets. According to Walter Hessert, head of strategy at Paxos, a PayPal infrastructure provider, PayPal has become the world's largest blockchain-enabled consumer digital wallet by allowing its clients to send and receive bitcoin.

He called the platform "a historic step in the mass acceptance of digital assets and Web3" in a statement.

PayPal's descent into the rabbit hole

When asked about expectations for increasing platform usage in light of the new transfer capabilities, da Ponte responded, "the early indicators in terms of demand are extremely good."

"I'm not sure if it'll be about the total number of users or whether it'll be more about individuals moving through the adoption cycle," he said, adding, "We have a lot of people who have accepted the basic product, and as they expand, they want to do more things." As a result, it's less about bringing in advanced people from outside and more about keeping our existing customers on the learning curve."

Despite an ostensibly cautious attitude to cryptocurrencies, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes at PayPal, which bought tech-heavy cryptocurrency custody startup Curv in March of last year and was discovered to be working on a dollar-backed "PayPal Coin" earlier this year.

"We want individuals who acquire digital currencies on our platform to be able to use them to do something with them, whether it's buying NFTs or interacting with games or other things," da Ponte said. "Stable coins are a component of that and incredibly necessary for the commerce and payments element to thriving."