In a major revelation at the Solana Breakpoint 2024 livestream, PayPal’s José Fernández announced PayPal’s move from Ethereum to Solana for their cryptocurrency payment system. This decision is a shift that changes the dynamics of digital payments and shows the strength of Solana over Ethereum in some of the critical areas that are important for mass adoption.
As stated by Fernández, PayPal requires a more efficient way of handling a large number of payments, and Solana’s platform can handle up to 1000 transactions per second at a lower cost of operation and with additional token extensions.
Ethereum is one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies and is used in many applications; however, it has been critiqued for having higher transaction fees and longer processing times, especially during rush hour. Solana, which is characterized by high throughput and lower cost structure, seems to be a perfect solution to these challenges, offering a much more efficient solution for the number of transactions that PayPal processes daily.
Advancing the Future of Payments with Solana and PayPal
Solana entered the blockchain world in March at the beginning of 2020, which Anatoly Yakovenko developed. Solana is based on the approach of Proof of History (PoH). This foundational technology enables the network to facilitate up to thousands of transactions per second; thus, Solana is one of the industry’s most scalable and fast blockchains.
PayPal was founded as Confinity in 1998, and by 2001, it had become a leading online payment service. It was bought by eBay in 2002 and was a necessity for any online business. PayPal became an independent company in 2015. Over the years, it has not limited itself to the payment processing company, and it has adopted new technologies such as incorporating cryptocurrencies into its digital wallet.
This partnership aligns with the general trend of the financial industry embracing decentralized ledger technologies to improve efficiency in online transactions. Thus, using Solana’s high-performance blockchain, PayPal will be able to offer millions of users a low-cost service and become the first step in expanding the use of cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions.
