Fintech pioneer PayPal may be building its own NFT Marketplace. Interestingly, it has become the latest mega-corporation to file patents and trademarks around NFTs and the metaverse. IP Attorney Mike Kondoudis confirmed the move in a Twitter post dated October 25th. Furthermore, in June, PayPal hinted at diving deeper into the metaverse at the CoinDesk Annual Consensus. So, is PayPal entering the metaverse, and why?
Could PayPal’s NFT Marketplace be the new wave?
What Will PayPal’s Move Into NFTs Mean For The Space?
In June, during the CoinDesk consensus, PayPal CEO stated, “blockchain tech is slowly redesigning the future of our financial system.” The NFT/Web3 trademark announcement from PayPal comes around the same time as another global fintech giant ‘Western Union’ announced similar moves. This is a huge push forward to the web3 ecosystem and helps faster acceptance and growth of the industry. The trademark applications include plans for exchanging, trading, and processing transfers of digital assets. The filing goes on to include crypto, digital, and virtual currencies.
The first trademark application is “downloadable software” for trading and storing cryptocurrencies. This is why many speculate a new NFT marketplace exclusive to PayPal is in the works. Moreover, the other trademark pertains to crypto payment processing applications.
However, this would not be the first time the company has delved into crypto. Earlier this year, PayPal introduced a pay-via-crypto feature. This allowed users to transfer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin to and from the app to external crypto wallets. This includes crypto exchanges, hardware wallets, and family and friends. To add to this, PayPal also announced its stablecoin at the start of this year.
About PayPal
PayPal is among the most significant global online payment processors. PayPal lets users pay for things or transfer money online via a bank account. The application also keeps private user information hidden from merchants. With more than 360 million users across 200 countries, their move into NFTs and web3 is set to be a benchmark in the coming years.
