Prospects for a global cryptocurrency adoption are rising very strongly. As demand for cryptocurrencies grow, Paypal, a payment giant is hiring more than 100 crypto-related positions.
A US federal legislator has already introduced a Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act. The legislation will “provide the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with authority over digital asset securities and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with authority over digital assets.”
Last week, lawmaker, Don Beyer, introduced the bill for an Act that will incorporate digital assets into existing financial regulatory structures, according to an announcement posted on his official website.
According to him, ‘’digital assets and blockchain technology hold great promise, and it is clear that assets like bitcoin and ether are here to stay. Unfortunately, the current digital asset market structure and regulatory framework is ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers.
“Digital asset holders have been subjected to rampant fraud, theft, and market manipulation for years, yet Congress has hitherto ignored the entreaties of industry experts and federal regulators to create a comprehensive legal framework.”
The bill is seeking to create statutory definitions for digital assets and digital asset securities and provide SEC with authority over digital asset securities and CFTC with authority over digital assets.
It is also seeking to provide legal certainty as to the regulatory status for the top 90% of the digital asset market (by market capitalisation and trading volume) through a joint SEC/CFTC rulemaking.
Furthermore, it will require digital asset transactions that are not recorded on the publicly distributed ledger to be reported to a registered Digital Asset Trade Repository within 24 hours to minimise the potential for fraud and promote transparency.
Its sponsor says the Federal Reserve will have “explicit authority to issue a digital version of the U.S. dollar,” the bill further states, adding that the US Treasury Secretary will have the “authority to permit or prohibit US dollar and other fiat-based stablecoins.”
Recently, Paypal’s CEO, Dan Schulman, revealed the company’s expansion plans, pointing out, “we continue to be really pleased with the momentum we’re seeing on crypto and we’re obviously adding incremental functionality into that.”
According to Job postings on the company’s website, there are at least 102 job openings related to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. While most of the jobs are located in the US, there are five job postings for positions in Tel Aviv, Israel, six in Ireland, one in Singapore, one in Hong Kong, and five in Guatemala City for Paypal’s online money transfer service, Xoom.
Within the US, 22 jobs are in California; 16 in New York; 13 in Texas; 9 in Arizona; and 8 in Illinois. A few other states have less than five jobs posted each. The positions range from crypto engineering managers, programme managers, strategy managers, and blockchain AML analytics managers, to investigators, operations managers, crypto investigations specialists, crypto tax reporting managers, and crypto legal directors.
Schulman outlined during the company’s recent earnings call a number of ways the payments giant is expanding its crypto services, including launching a “super app”, open banking integration, U.K. expansion, and third-part wallet transfers.
Paypal says in the first quarter that its crypto service showed “really great results.” In April, Schulman said the demand for cryptocurrencies on the Paypal platform was “multiple-fold” initial expectations.
It recently increased its weekly crypto purchase limit to $100,000 and removed the annual limit altogether. This was a five-fold increase from the previous weekly limit of $20,000 and a substantial increase from the annual purchase limit of $50,000.
A recent report shows the number of global crypto users reached 221 million in June. The number rose from 100 million to 200 million within only four months.
