Editor'south take: In the crypto community, at that place's a pop expression that applies here. "Not your keys, non your coin," significant that if yous don't own the private keys associated with your cryptocurrency, you don't really own it. With PayPal, yous essentially trust your crypto to a third party, simply the ability to move your holdings off the platform is coming soon.

PayPal will shortly accost i of the biggest shortcomings of cryptocurrency on its platform.

Since mid-October and upward to this point, PayPal has offered users the ability to purchase, sell and hold four types of cryptocurrency on its platform: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Greenbacks and Litecoin. Notably, the crypto you lot buy tin can't be moved off PayPal into a standalone wallet.

For some, the risk versus reward of letting someone else manage your keys is worth the run a risk. Some casual crypto players may not want the stress of managing their own coins. Nosotros've heard time and over again of people that have lost or forgotten their individual keys, negating any adventure that they'll always recover their holdings.

While information technology seems highly unlikely that PayPal would vanish overnight with all of its customers' holdings, that situation wouldn't be of business if you had your own keys stored in a individual wallet. And that is exactly what PayPal is working towards.

During the recent CoinDesk briefing, VP of crypto at PayPal, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, said the company is actively working on a withdrawal function.

"We desire to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in whatever way they want to pay," da Ponte said. "They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use information technology in commerce, and we want them to be able to accept the crypto they acquired with u.s. and take information technology to the destination of their selection."

PayPal hasn't fix a date for the debut of its withdrawal feature, simply did add the ability for users to pay for appurtenances and services with crypto back in March.

Image credit Jirapong Manustrong, Lukas Gojda