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After announcing that it was going to integrate Bitcoin, it seems that the online payment giant PayPal has big plans for cryptocurrencies. In the coming weeks, the company may reach an agreement to purchase the BitGo cryptocurrencies guard service, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources close to the case.
However, discussions may not succeed and PayPal may decide to choose to acquire other cryptos companies, the article said. The two mentioned companies declined to comment.
BitGo has raised $58.5 million USD in 2018 for a value of $170 million USD, according to PitchBook. The company, backed by big names such as Goldman Sachs, Digital Currency Group and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, among others, has been focusing exclusively on serving institutional clients since 2013.
The company is also providing its on-call solution for the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project. The WBTC is an ERC20 token backed 1:1 with Bitcoin (BTC). The total value locked in the WBTC now totals more than $1.4 billion, according to Defi Pulse data.
This year, BitGo itself acquired and integrated its Harbor digital securities platform, becoming a regulated broker in the United States, as well as the institutional digital asset platform Lumina, which provides portfolio accounting and tax services.
In July, Nick Carmi, CEO of BitGo Prime, BitGo’s institutional trading service, told Cryptonews.com that at the time there were no mergers or acquisitions on the horizon, but that several companies were submitting such proposals every week.
This comes after Paypal announced earlier this week that it would allow cryptocurrency transactions for its clients in the USA – bringing 300 million new potential customers to the crypto space. This announcement caused huge ripples in the crypto market and sent Bitcoin soaring past historical resistance $12,000 and even $13,000. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is still closing one of its best weeks in recent memory around $12,800.
While nothing is official yet, more announcements from Paypal regarding the crypto space should follow shortly.