PayPal
Explains Withdrawal From Libra: Focusing on Roadmap, Which Includes
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain
PayPal, along with eBay, Visa,
MasterCard, and Mercado Libre, withdrew from the Libra Association earlier
this year. Some believed it was due to regulatory scrutiny, but in a new
interview with Fortune PayPal’s CEO Dan Schulman revealed it was looking to focus
on its own roadmap.
In the interview Schulman noted
PayPal believes it’ll “advance financial inclusion faster” if it focuses on
its roadmap than it if puts a large amount of resources on the proposed Libra
cryptocurrency.
As for regulators, he said
PayPal has an “extremely robust relationship with every regulator out there.”
When asked about the firm’s work on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology,
Schulman said he didn’t want to share much over the potential competitive
advantage that could be thrown away. Per his words, it would be like sharing
what PayPal’s next acquisition would be.
As for the potential they see
in blockchain technology, he said:
“We think there’s a lot of promise to
blockchain technology. It’s intriguing to us, but it really needs to do
something that the traditional rails can’t do. (…) It’s about the
applications on top of it, not necessarily using it to lower the cost by
one-eighth of one eighth of a fraction.”
