Welcome to This Week in Crypto, your trusted source for the latest happenings in the cryptocurrency world. In this edition, we explore how PayPal is expanding its crypto services to U.S. business accounts, enabling merchants nationwide to engage with digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum directly through their PayPal accounts. We’ll also delve into the surprising fact that China continues to control over 55% of the global Bitcoin mining network despite a nationwide crypto ban. Lastly, we’ll introduce you to PiP World, a crypto gaming startup aiming to revolutionize financial education by creating a “Duolingo for Finance” through engaging, gamified experiences. Let’s dive into these stories and see how they’re shaping the crypto landscape this week.
PayPal Enables Crypto Trading for U.S. Businesses
PayPal has expanded its cryptocurrency services to U.S. business accounts, allowing merchants to buy, hold, and sell digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum directly through their PayPal accounts. Announced in September, this new feature responds to growing demand from business owners seeking the same crypto capabilities available to individual consumers. Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s senior vice president of blockchain and digital currencies, expressed enthusiasm about meeting this demand and empowering businesses to engage with digital currencies effortlessly. Merchants can also transfer their cryptocurrencies to external wallets or cold storage for enhanced security. The service is available across the United States, except in New York.
In addition to expanding crypto services for businesses, PayPal has been advancing its own stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD). Launched in August 2023 and issued by Paxos, PYUSD is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits and short-term cash equivalents, making it redeemable one-to-one with the U.S. dollar. PayPal extended PYUSD to the Solana blockchain, leveraging Solana’s lower transaction costs to encourage its use for everyday purchases like coffee or lunch. While PYUSD is gaining traction, it still lags behind established stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) from Circle, which have significantly larger market capitalizations.
China Controls Estimated 55% of Bitcoin Mining Despite Ban
China continues to dominate the Bitcoin mining industry despite a 2021 ban on cryptocurrencies. According to Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, Chinese mining pools control over 55% of the global Bitcoin mining network. While U.S. mining firms are gradually increasing their share—currently managing about 40%—Chinese pools primarily support smaller miners in Asia, whereas U.S. pools cater to larger, institutional miners. This dominance persists even as China plans to amend its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations in 2025 to include cryptocurrency transactions.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin miners worldwide faced significant financial pressure in August. Miner revenue dropped over 10.5% from July to $827.56 million, marking the lowest monthly revenue in a year. The number of Bitcoins mined also slightly decreased from around 14,725 BTC in July to 13,843 BTC in August. Despite the ban, many users in mainland China have found ways to access the crypto market, leading to speculation in the crypto community that China might lift its ban on Bitcoin by late 2024.
Crypto Startup PiP World Aims to Gamify Finance Education
Crypto gaming startup PiP World aims to revolutionize financial education by creating engaging, gamified experiences around finance, trading, and investing—essentially becoming the “Duolingo for finance.” Led by CEO Saad Naja, the company is taking a multifaceted approach by targeting multiple platforms to reach a broad audience. PiP World has acquired StockRise, the top-grossing finance game on Roblox with over 7.3 million visits and 300,000 monthly active users. In StockRise, players manage a virtual investment portfolio, including cryptocurrencies, to learn how to make money in the stock market. They have also launched Gold Rush on Telegram, quickly amassing 125,000 monthly active users by leveraging existing game assets and the platform’s engaged community. The company is considering expanding to other platforms like Discord to further broaden its reach.
Next on PiP World’s agenda is the launch of their PiPS token, which will be integrated into their upcoming mobile game, PiP Trader—a hyper-casual trading strategy and management simulator. The PiPS token is intended to facilitate on-chain activities within the game, creating interoperability between mobile gameplay and blockchain technology. The company is also developing PiP Academy, a gamified financial literacy app that will offer personalized AI learning experiences. This app aims to simplify complex financial concepts like compound interest, short-term trading, and technical analysis, making them accessible to users in an engaging format. By breaking down these topics to their core elements, PiP World hopes to make financial education more approachable and effective for everyone.
