Hello and welcome to this week’s Overbit’s Weekly Round Up. Our first report is that PayPal, the global payments giant, aims to allow users to withdraw Bitcoin to third-party wallets, according to its blockchain lead.
PayPal does not currently allow users to move cryptocurrency holdings off-platform, even though it has allowed consumers to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies since October 2020. However, Jose Fernandez da Ponte told moderator Jeff John Roberts at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 conference on Wednesday that a withdrawal mechanism is in the works.
Jose stated, “We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give a choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay,” and continuing “They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.”
The moderator brought up a rumour that PayPal plans to launch its own stablecoin, in which Jose stated, “This is way too early,” and the conversation continued to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and which he said, “It absolutely makes sense that central banks will issue their own tokens.”
With central banks and huge enterprises all flocking into digital currencies, it’s simple to see crypto’s long-term future – which leads us to our subsequent significant development – Fidelity Investments’ first Bitcoin fund has raised $102 million from accredited investors since its start last August, according to regulatory papers released on Wednesday.
The Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund I, LP, managed by chief strategist Peter Jubber, is a passively managed vehicle that Fidelity provides to qualified investors through its Fidelity Digital Funds subsidiary. According to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, 83 investors pooled their wagers (at a minimum of $50,000 apiece) for a total raise of $102,350,437.
That makes Fidelity’s offering one of the largest of its kind. Only Pantera, Galaxy, and NYDIG, which recently began offering access to Morgan Stanley clients, have recorded sales of more than $100 million for a Bitcoin-only fund. As CoinDesk initially reported in April, Morgan Stanley’s standalone Bitcoin fund, created in collaboration with NYDIG, managed $29.4 million in its first two weeks and such funds are only open to accredited investors.
Fidelity has announced the planned launch of a more widely available Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) under the “Wise Origin” brand, but the SEC has yet to approve a Bitcoin ETF after rejecting dozens of proposals in recent years.
As institutions are racing to develop funds for accredited investors and retail investors as a sign of the times, the number of possibilities for crypto investors and the size market will continue to grow.
That concludes this week’s episode of Overbit’s Weekly Round Up; thank you for reading, and see you next week!