Max Levchin, the founder of PayPal, says he"ended up with a lot of bitcoin' as an investor in one of the cryptocurrency's early startups. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Max Levchin, the founder of PayPal, says he"ended up with a lot of bitcoin' as an investor in one of the cryptocurrency's early startups. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

PayPal founder Max Levchin talks bitcoin and digital payments



Max Levchin helped introduce the masses to the concept of a digital wallet when he co-founded PayPal in the late 1990s.

These days, he is still trying to use online services to reshape the world of finance. He is currently the chief executive of Affirm, a San Francisco startup that offers fixed-payment loans through the internet. It's an alternative to traditional credit cards, which can get consumers into trouble because small minimum payments they make each month can keep them in debt for decades.

Mr Levchin, now 42, discusses the state of digital payments, computer security and bitcoin, a cryptocurrency whose value has ranged from about $1,000 to more than $19,000 this year as investors have bet on its future prospects.

Are digital payments progressing as quickly as you hoped since you started PayPal?

They are moving at a good pace, adjusted for just how large and complicated the market is. It's highly regulated and there are a lot of things to be careful about. The elephant in the room for the last seven or eight years has been cryptocurrency. A big "what if" and "when if" has been surrounding bitcoin and its ilk.

Why so?

The asset generally appreciated at such a blistering pace. Any time you acquire it, why not hang on to it? Because you just don't want to spend it yet. On the whole, it's a kind of transaction tool that is locked into areas where credit and cash don't really service the purpose. So you wind up finding it in somewhat darker corners.

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Read more:

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Do you invest in bitcoin?

I wound up with a lot of bitcoin as an early investor in one of the early bitcoin startups. But it wasn't a conscious decision to go buy a bunch of bitcoin. I generally don't speculate. I am very old school in that sense. I try to understand how value is traded and what is going to happen to it in the very long term, not because I am a stranger to speculative investing. It's because I don't have time to time the market. So what I end up doing is committing to a stock or committing to a company.

What are some of the most interesting areas of digital payments?

A good example is international remittances, where companies can pop up and do well. They're the guys who figured out how to do it much cheaper and much more transparently with much lower friction to both the recipient and the sender.

Should we be concerned about hackers wreaking havoc with our financial system?

We should be worried broadly about our cybersecurity preparedness. I don't think it's specific to payments. It is just generally increasing the cost of doing business and reduces societal trust. And this is the first time in history where it's scary. Everything has got a chip. We are going to have to learn how to secure keys (secret codes for unlocking digital files and services).

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

About Tenderd

Started: May 2018

Founder: Arjun Mohan

Based: Dubai

Size: 23 employees 

Funding: Raised $5.8m in a seed fund round in December 2018. Backers include Y Combinator, Beco Capital, Venturesouq, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, SOMA, Dynamo and Global Founders Capital

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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

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Company Profile:

Name: The Protein Bakeshop

Date of start: 2013

Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani

Based: Dubai

Size, number of employees: 12

Funding/investors:  $400,000 (2018)