Global payments provider PayPal has doubled its previous crypto volume record, with $242 million worth of digital avails changing easily on the platform during January. 11.

Co-ordinate to crypto marketplace information aggregator Nomics, yesterday'due south trading dwarfed PayPal'southward previous volume record of $129 million recorded on January. six. Since January. 1, daily volume has increased past 950% from $22.8.

With the spike in PayPal's volume coming amid Bitcoin'southward rally into new all-time highs, the U.S.-based payments firm appears to be gathering popularity among retail traders. Nuggets News' Alex Saunders asserted the spike in PayPal'due south volume is a likely sign of increasing adoption amid retail traders, tweeting: "retail has arrived."

Despite many within the crypto community praising PayPal's entrance into crypto for driving new users toward digital avails, others have criticized PayPal for creating a "gated" crypto community that does non support withdrawal functionality — with Twitter user Toomas Zobel speculating that the surge in volume maybe have resulted from retail capitulation:

"Is there a mode to view whether this was buy or sell volume? In this huge dump, information technology may just be retail sellers capitulating rather than creating buying pressure."

The discussions regarding whether PayPal'due south volume milestone is bullish or bearish come shortly after Nexo CEO Antoni Trenchev speculated Bitcoin'south recent crash from levels exceeding $40,000 was driven by retail investors rushing to realize profits.

PayPal's crypto services are accessed via Paxos' ItBit substitution. PayPal selected ItBit handle its crypto transactions upon launching digital asset trading services during October 2020.

PayPal is expected to offering cryptocurrency services to its 26 million merchants in the coming months, likely driving farther demand for the visitor'southward crypto services.