- PayPal saw its crypto holdings decrease in the third quarter.
- The fintech giant’s Bitcoin and Ether holdings fell despite quarter-over-quarter price increases.
- Retail interest may not be keeping pace with institutional uptake.
The online payments company giant PayPal reported Tuesday a decrease in its crypto holdings, a sign that institutions are making up a bigger share of crypto traders.
PayPal saw the amount of crypto it held on behalf of its customers drop almost 11% from the second to third quarter to about $2.17 billion, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The amount of Bitcoin it held, in dollars, decreased 1% from June 30 to September 30, even though the world’s largest cryptocurrency jumped 8% in price during the same period.
Similarly, PayPal’s Ether holdings tanked 27%, which outstripped the cryptocurrency’s 22% price decline.
In addition to Bitcoin and Ether, the fintech giant lets customers buy and sell Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and PayPal USD, the firm’s own stablecoin.
PayPal reported that the dollar value it held of these three cryptocurrencies also dropped.
Retail, institutional
CryptoQuant, a research firm, notes that institutional demand for Bitcoin has been rising.
Over the past year, said founder and CEO Ki Young Ju, less than half of the Bitcoin flowing into US spot exchange-traded funds, which are about 80% retail, flowed into so-called whale wallets holding more than 1,000 Bitcoins.
“In custodial wallets, institutional demand is twice that of retail,” at about 670,000 Bitcoins versus 278,000, he said on X.
Since the launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in January, almost $23.3 billion has flowed into the financial vehicles, according to SoSo Value.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs let investors gain exposure to the cryptocurrency from traditional brokerage accounts.
The total number of institutional investors who had positions in Bitcoin ETFs rose 14% between the first and second quarter this year, according to an August note from Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of Bitwise.
“The institutions are coming, and they’re coming in size,” he wrote.
In contrast, the retail market’s appetite for crypto is debatable.
Search interest this October for the term “Bitcoin” is 82% lower than it was during its all-time high in December 2017, according to Google Trends.
Signs of retail interest will become clearer on Wednesday after Robinhood and Coinbase release their own quarterly reports, which will detail the quarter-over-quarter change in volume of crypto transactions on each platform.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is up 1.7% over the past 24 hours to trade at $72,139.
- Ethereum is up 2.1% to trade at $2,667.
What we’re reading
- DWF fires partner over drugging allegations in Hong Kong — DL News
- Bitcoin ETFs Record $5 Billion in Daily Volume as Inflows Top $870 Million — Unchained
- The top 5 beta plays on Solana — Milk Road
- Build your own millionaire AI agent — Milk Road
- Visa, Coinbase Offer Real-Time Crypto Purchases Via Debit Cards — Bloomberg
- Can you hack a hacker? Tapioca DAO’s $2.7m counter exploit says yes — DL News
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.
