PayPal brings ‘crypto gambling’ to US retailers: economist Nouriel Roubini

Economist Nouriel Roubini has criticized online payments giant PayPal Holdings Inc for allowing its customers to buy, sell and hold BTC and other altcoins, from next year onwards. In a tweet published on Monday Roubini shared an article titled how PayPal has brought “crypto gambling,” to customers in the U.S. – which is “bad” for PayPal users:

The author of the aforementioned article is David Gerard- a staunch critic of the crypto space- is known for his book called “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts,” that takes on the crypto and blockchain networks. On a similar beat, Gerard has now said in his new article that PayPal was going to get investors “ripped off:” 

If PayPal pursues this crypto trading market, I would expect trouble when — not if — mum-and-dad investors get ripped off.

I wonder how PayPal is going to help its new day traders deal with their tax obligations. Remember that, in the US, every individual crypto trade is a taxable event, and the IRS has already been requesting bulk data from retail-heavy exchanges like Coinbase.

Making a comparison with stock-trader Robinhood, the author pointed out how users on Paypal cannot withdraw coins and that “cash was the only way out.” Recently, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse had also shared his disappointment with PayPal’s crypto venture, by pointing out the lack of withdrawal options for its users.  

Further, the author alleged that Tether was manipulating the 2020 Bitcoin market and that the stablecoin was a scam:

The price of bitcoin in 2020 is heavily manipulated…The Bitcoin price in 2020 has mostly been held up by ever-increasing issuance of billions of tethers.

Ordinary people getting into crypto gambling will end up losing to the market manipulators. PayPal is feeding its users to the sharks.

Meanwhile even the economist Roubini had earlier called out the stablecoin Tether for the “criminal manipulation” of the Bitcoin rally last June:  

Roubini has been known to be a strong critic of the crypto industry, in fact early this month he had lauded the CFTC’s charges against BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes and claimed that Hayes and his firm were running a “massive criminal operation:”