PayPal's Q1 Report Shows It Is 'Safeguarding' $1B in Crypto

Investing

Published: May 9, 2023 10:30 pm

Last Updated: May 10, 2023 11:32 am

In its most recent 10-Q filing, the payment firm PayPal revealed it is holding nearly $1 billion worth of its customers’ cryptocurrency. These assets overwhelmingly consist of Bitcoin and Ethereum which amount to $499 million and $362 million. This is a significant increase from the fourth quarter of 2022 when the payment giant held just over $604 million.

PayPal is Holding $1 Billion of Customers’ Crypto With Third-Party Custodians

PayPal’s recently-filed 10-Q form revealed that the company is currently holding a total of $943 million of its customer’s cryptocurrency. The assets are, however, not held directly by PayPal, but kept with third-party partner companies which serve as custodians.

The filing explains that the payment giant allows customers in certain markets to hold and trade cryptocurrencies. These digital assets include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. BTC and ETH represent a vast majority of the digital assets held by PayPay for its customers.

Additionally, the filing shows that there has been a significant increase in the cryptocurrencies held by the payment giant. In the fourth quarter of 2022, PayPal was “safeguarding” approximately $604 million worth of digital assets—90% of these being Bitcoin and Ethereum.

PayPal Closes 11% In the Red After Publishing Q1 Earnings

This week, PayPal also disclosed its Q1 earnings report. The firm performed noticeably better than was forecast. Its earnings per share amounted to $1.17 instead of the expected $0.98. Similarly, unlike the predicted revenue of $6.2 billion, it achieved $7.04 billion.

While the company managed to beat most analyst estimates, its stock went into a steep decline already in Monday’s after-hours trading and closed on Tuesday 12.73% in the red. Overall, the company’s stock is around 11% down year-to-date and approximately 75% from the high of $308 in 2021.

One of the reasons for the drop, despite the encouraging results, is the fact that the company is very cautious about the current global financial environment. The company’s CEO, Daniel Schulman, stated, in Monday’s earnings call, that “the macroeconomic and geopolitical environments are complex and difficult to predict.”

Additionally, PayPal is still looking for a successor to Shulman who is set to leave the company at the end of the year.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist

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