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Mooners & Shakers: PayPal unveils crypto ‘hub’; Trump holds $500k in ETH

PayPal has followed the launch of its own stablecoin by opening a crypto payments hub. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has a small fortune in ETH.

Rob Badman
4 min read
3:01PMAugust 15, 2023
Stockhead
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'Yay, me! I have heaps of Ethereum,' Donald Trump might have said, but probably didn't. Picture: Getty Images
'Yay, me! I have heaps of Ethereum,' Donald Trump might have said, but probably didn't. Picture: Getty Images

In case you missed it … PayPal launched its own stablecoin, PYUSD, recently.

Now it’s gone a step further with a crypto payments hub.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump holds up to $US500k in Ethereum.

We’ll start with the former before the former president.

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PayPal keeps rolling into crypto

Digital payments giant PayPal has rolled out its “Cryptocurrencies Hub”, which allows users to hold and interact with Bitcoin and other cryptos through their PayPal accounts.

Per newly updated terms and conditions, the new feature allows users to buy, hold, and sell crypto assets, pay for purchases, convert between the firm’s new US-dollar-backed stablecoin PYUSD and other crypto assets, send and receive crypto assets, and view market info and other crypto content.

Notes the firm: “If you establish and access the Cryptocurrencies Hub, you will be able to hold a crypto asset balance, and buy, sell, receive, and send crypto assets, including in transactions where the proceeds from a sale of crypto assets will be used to pay for purchases through PayPal, and to convert between PYUSD and another crypto asset. Any balance in your Cryptocurrencies Hub represents your ownership of the amount of each crypto asset shown.”

Note, the crypto that users hold through the PayPal service is custodied by the firm or by its stablecoin issuer Paxos, and not directly held by the users themselves in the way they would if they were instead using a hardware wallet, for example.

Still, despite any perceived limitations of centralisation here, the cryptoverse seems to be generally loving this positive adoption news.

Crypto sceptic Trump has Ethereum bag

Is the former president, potentially turned felon, turned hot-ticket Republican presidential candidate (again) a total hypocrite?

You probs have a ready-made answer for that, but when it comes to crypto – we say yes, probably. Unless he really has changed his tune and has become a believer.

The reality is, Trump did unreasonably well from his two recent (the first batch came out last December) self-aggrandising NFT projects and now very likely has no idea how to off-ramp the bulk ETH that was used to purchase the Trump superhero/sports star/rock star NFTs.

NFTs that sold out in hours and carry the “utility” of a sweepstakes entry to win prizes such as dinner or a game of golf with the Donald. (As colleague Gregor Stronach said, “Second prize: two dinners, two games of golf etc.”)

It’s been revealed that Trump holds up to $US500,000 in an Ethereum wallet, according to a filing with the US Office of Government Ethics.

Trump made somewhere between $US500,000 and $US1 million (in a combo of crypto and USD sales) from his NFTs.

But when he held the top job in the US, Trump made it very clear about his disdain for Bitcoin and crypto, calling it “fake” money, pointing to its supposed threat to the US dollar and its ability to facilitate “unlawful behaviour” such as drug trade and such and such.

Of course, the US dollar has never facilitated such things.

In any case, we’ll see where Trump stands on it all once he gets some help sending his ETH to an exchange offramp, and once he makes a mint from his next inevitable lot of NFTs. Come on, Donald. Make Crypto Great Again, would ya?

MORE FROM STOCKHEAD: Riding the fintech payments mega trend| Small cap tech stocks profit from profit | Deep tech answers to wicked problem

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at $US1.22 trillion at 2.30pm Tuesday (AEST), up a fraction of a fraction (0.1 per cent to be exact) since the same time Monday, here’s the state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Source: CoinGecko
Source: CoinGecko

Bitcoin is ranging, ranging, crabbing along … something’s gotta give soon, right?

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at 2.30pm Tuesday (AEST). Stats based on CoinGecko.com data.

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • Hedera (HBAR), (market cap: $US2.33 billion) +12.1%
  • THORChain (RUNE), (market cap: $US467 million) +10.9%
  • FLEX Coin (FLEX), (market cap: $US685 million) +9.5%
  • Toncoin (TON), (market cap: $US5.03 billion) +6.1%
  • Conflux (CFX), (market cap: $US398 million) +4%

What’s with the Hedera (HBAR) pump? We can tell you the following:

It’s been revealed that the unique layer 1 project’s “Dropp” micropayments system is being used as a service provider for the US Federal Reserve’s instant payments platform FedNow.

Say what? Yeah.

Visit Stockhead, where ASX small caps are big deals

Per a FedNow press release, Dropp is a pay-by-bank alternative to credit card payments facilitating small-value purchases digitally without large transaction fees.

Dropp allows micropayments in Hedera’s HBAR token, the US dollar and the USDC stablecoin.

SLUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: $US782 million) -11.4%
  • XDC Network (XDC), (market cap: $US837 million) -5.3%
  • Injective (INJ), (market cap: $US613 million) -4.4%
  • Synthetix Network (SNX), (market cap: $US785 million) – 3.1%
  • Algorand (ALGO), (market cap: $US890 million) -2.9%

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

This content first appeared on stockhead.com.au

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stockhead/mooners-shakers-paypal-unveils-crypto-hub-trump-holds-500k-in-eth/news-story/5d661d8feed520bf2b8b465264a5a31b