Dan Schulman is the proud owner of the world’s first pair of cowboy boots to be bought using Bitcoin on PayPal. But he may have wanted to wait to make his purchase.
The 63-year-old chief executive officer of PayPal Holdings, known for being partial to boots and jeans, used the payment giant’s new “Checkout with Crypto” service that allows customers to sell cryptocurrencies to pay for goods from the millions of merchants with a PayPal button on their websites.
See: How far will the non-fungible token mania go?
“That’s pretty cool,” Schulman said in a two-minute video the company posted of him making the purchase of Lucchese ostrich boots from Bronco Western Wear. “You can just use your crypto balance as a funding source like you would your PayPal balance, or your credit card or your debit card. It’s just another funding instrument.”
Today, we are announcing the launch of Checkout with Crypto, a new way for PayPal customers to check out with #Cryptocurrency to pay for select online purchases. https://t.co/RbOe8aLtlz pic.twitter.com/zGWHgbwVlU
PayPal has for months been teasing the new service, which also allows consumers to use Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash. Crypto enthusiasts hope it will bring a new era for digital currencies that allow them to be a utility that consumers can use to pay for basic goods and services. Bitcoin rose almost 4% on March 30 following PayPal’s announcement.
Given the volatility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, choosing when to click “buy” can be a challenge. In the video, Schulman can be seen agreeing to convert 0.00540884 Bitcoin when the digital currency was valued at US$55,279.87 to pay for the size 9 1/2 boots, which sell for US$299. That shows the peril of using the cryptocurrency as a form of payment, with Bitcoin valued at US$59,179.62 by the morning of March 30.
PayPal won’t charge a transaction fee to checkout with cryptocurrencies, the company said in a statement. Instead, the cryptocurrency conversion spread will be built into the conversion from crypto to US dollars.
