PayPal Would Rather Let Square Rule the Crypto Exchange Market

PayPal (PYPL) has no plans to compete with Square (SQ) in offering cryptocurrency exchange services. In an interview with Jim Cramer during a recent investor event in New York, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman portrayed the cryptocurrency exchange business as a risky venture that the company would try to avoid getting into.

According to Schulman, PayPal doesn’t want to be involved in consumers losing money. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, soared more than 1,000% last year, but the rally was short-lived, and Bitcoin is currently trading at less than half of what its peak price was last year. Bitcoin’s price volatility sparked a crypto sell-off early this year.

The volatility of cryptos seems to be the reason PayPal is keen on avoiding venturing into the crypto exchange business. But Square, which enables some of its users to buy and sell Bitcoin, views its venture into crypto exchange as a way to expand financial inclusion by broadening investment options for everyday people.

PayPal and Square are competing in terms of providing comprehensive financial services that go beyond payment processing. PayPal, for instance, has partnered with Acorns to automatically save and invest payment change for its customers. PayPal closed the first quarter with 237 million active customers, with over 200 million of them being consumers.

Cryptocurrencies have generally been marred in controversy in recent months, with Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL), and Twitter (TWTR) moving to restrict crypto-related advertisements on their platforms in the name of protecting consumers.