Almost 20% of PayPal Users Have Used App to Trade Bitcoin, Mizuho Says

Nearly one-fifth of PayPal (PYPL) users have already traded bitcoin using the PayPal app, according to a report published Tuesday by Mizuho Securities and obtained by CoinDesk.

• Per the Mizuho survey of 380 users, about 65% would use bitcoin as a currency at PayPal's 28 million merchants; 17% of these users have already used the app to buy and sell bitcoin.
• Bitcoin exuberance boosts user engagement, the survey found, with bitcoin traders reporting more than three times higher usage frequency compared with non-bitcoin traders. They also held larger cash balances, the survey found.
• "About 50% of PayPal bitcoin traders reported increased usage of the PayPal app after beginning to trade bitcoin," the survey found. "This compares with just 9% who reported reduced engagement."
• The survey comes over a month after PayPal announced its plans to support bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as CoinDesk reported at the time, and only a few weeks after the payments firm removed the waitlist to access the service, citing overwhelming demand.
• But converting non-bitcoin traders into cryptocurrency users is a challenge for PayPal, the survey found. Only 8% of non-bitcoin traders said they would plan to trade the leading cryptocurrency in the future on PayPal's app while 42% said they "don't know yet," according to Mizuho.
• Citing the results of the survey, the firm raised its stock trading target on PayPal to $290 per share, up from the prior target of $270. In recent trading, shares of PayPal were up about 2.37% to $219.20. Mizuho maintained its "buy" rating on the payments giant.
  

Read also: PayPayl Removes Waitlist for New Crypto Service, Boosts Weekly Purchase Limit to $20K

UPDATE (Nov. 2, 01:50 UTC): Added number of users surveyed by Mizuho to the first bullet point.