I finally used Paypal's checkout with crypto feature...
Difficulty Level - Easy
Its our Sixth post in the "I did what with crypto" series...
In our first post (click here)... we bought skittles from a physical store
In our second post (click here)... we went online shopping
In our third post (click here)... we paid rent to my landlord..
In our fourth post (click here)... we donated to the red cross
In our fifth post (click here)... we used dogecoin to buy Ice cream
In this post i share my experience using Paypal's checkout with crypto feature which they announced here back in march 2021
My Ingredients
The paypal app
The merchant (in this case Udemy... i was paying for a course)
The rest of the story - How it works
1. Pre-Req: I needed to acquire crypto on paypal. I had done this a few months ago. This is as simple as logging in to your paypal account. Going to the menu and selecting crypto. Paypal shows you the cryptos available to purchase (mainly BTC, ETH, Bitcoin Cash and LiteCoin). You select one of the cryptos, click buy and follow the prompts to pay via your bank account, credit or debit card. In my case i purchased ETH and this was my ETH balance.
2. After selecting the course i wanted to buy from Udemy. Udemy had a "pay with paypal" option. Upon selecting that option it took me to paypal's page which gave me the typical options for how to pay... (i.e. using by paypal cash balance, bank account(s), credit or debit cards, paypal credit) and ALSO (as seen below) gave me the option to use my ETH balance to pay for the course. I elected to use ETH
3. Once i selected ETH/Ethereum, Paypal sells ETH equivalent to the dollar value of my purchase in this case $16.99 worth of ETH and pays the dollar value to the merchant. Below is the purchase receipt
So what?
This is awesome... This was actually as easy as paying with your credit/debit card or any other form of payment. Paypal has significant global reach with consumers and merchants and are there in position to fuel significant adoption of crypto for day to day payments. Lets watch and see.
How it needs to get better?
It's not clear to me that it's an option for ANY purchase with ANY merchant, as i dont always see this option available. So, the more merchants this is available to the better.
Also I'm looking forward to paypal allowing more flexibility with your crypto balance. Specifically allowing users to send crypto from one user to another
Finally, when it's time to file taxes, there needs to be an easy way to figure out the "gain" or "loss" on sale of my ETH for tax reporting purposes.
Now you!!!
Leave me a message, or better... go do something... anything with crypto and tell us about it...maybe we will even post your story in this series!!
