In a conversation on Bloomberg program “Street Smart” surrounding activist investor Carl Icahn’s proposal to make PayPal it’s own company, eBay (who owns PayPal) CEO John Donahoe released an interesting tidbit of information surrounding digital payments, and their future at PayPal.
“There’s nothing that’s holding PayPal back from pursuing digital payments today,” said Donahoe in response to a question asked by the program’s co-host, Matt Miller. “In fact, PayPal is pursuing digital payments and is the leading digital payments alternative in many different environments.”
“For now, right? Until everyone starts using bitcoin, and then there will be no reason to use PayPal,” retorted Miller.
Donahoe’s response to the question was nothing short of interesting:
“Well, you can use digital currencies in the PayPal digital wallet, that’s in fact what PayPal is doing — is building a digital wallet that can take multiple types of currency.”
Is it a sign that PayPal is getting primed to embrace bitcoin and other digital currency? Could they be creating their own spinoff? Or is it much ado about nothing?
Donahoe has previously acknowledged he feels digital currency will grow to become a “very powerful thing“.
As of current, the company has not announced anything in this manner, and as such, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We did think it was a worthy share, though.