I don't think it is what they predict, rather it is what they hope for.
At times like this when the price hasn't had any big move (up or down) the traders start getting antsy because they can no longer make profit and most importantly they can't predict the next move. Their best bet is for bitcoin to drop, specially those who love shorting bitcoin. Hence their negative waves talking about "dump"; they are just trying to make some quick profit.

LOL

I'm getting 2017 flashbacks where some people said "BTC to $1k will never happen again".

Directly? Absolutely not. Because PayPal is an actual exchange where people trade bitcoin to have an effect on the price. It also doesn't share enough of the market volume to have any effect even if it were an actual exchange!
Indirectly? Maybe, if these idiots' FUD could scare some other idiots into panic selling but so far I haven't seen any major moves so the chances are low.

I don't think PayPal is yet relevant enough in the crypto space to have any meaningful impact by halting trading. We've been through much, much worse in that regard. Bitcoin did well before PayPal started acting as an exchange, Bitcoin will do well after.

And that is assuming there is some merit to this claim to begin with.

The news says that paypal will only temporarily stop BTC and crypto purchases for U.K customers, and they can resume using paypal for such purchases as early as early next year: https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2023-08-16/paypal-to-halt-uk-crypto-sales-until-2024

Nevertheless, paypal is not even a crypto exchange, and i don't know the average number of people in the U.K who purchase BTC through paypal for people to even think that this will cause a dump in BTC's price, and as well stop it from rising above $40k, ridiculous! Though there are a lot of weak hands that might be moved by this, but i can't imagine they will be so gullible as to sell in numbers that will be noticed in the price of BTC.

This news may have some effect only on people from the UK (apparently only temporarily), but some geniuses like those we see on social networks draw completely meaningless conclusions from everything. Whether it's trolls or those who can't regret not knowing about Bitcoin before, it's completely pointless to waste time with them - history has proven that they've always been wrong, I have no doubt that it will be the same this time.

I will not say what I think about those who think that PP or someone else can influence Bitcoin, but I will just say that many live in various delusions - what would happen if PP ceased to exist - maybe the world would sink into chaos and hopelessness

PayPal is weak in the crypto market and they don't have much volume which will make their halting on bitcoin and other cryptocurrency not affect the price of bitcoin to dump. I don't think that a small exchange like them has any significant influence on bitcoin price.

There are big exchanges that will come up with such news that instantly,you might begin to see the dump in Bitcoin price. If PayPal temporary halt cryptocurrency transactions,it will only affect them as they will loose more customers and not the entire crypto market. The halving is near and such news is weak to turn the movement of bitcoin downward. People are only saying from their own understanding and don't forget it is impossible to predict the next movement in bitcoin price.

PayPal has an indirect relationship with the cryptoindustry, which leads to the conclusion that they don't have a strong influence on cryptocurrencies and forces that can stop the  growth bitcoin price. Paypal only recently (relatively) began to introduce crypto, which doesn't at all make them flagships in this industry, whose actions or related to them may affect the current state of affairs.

The user's comment in that chat looks funny.

This is another indicator that the statements of those who are not experts in the industry should not be taken seriously (the opinions of experts should also be treated with some degree of doubt). In general, everything is the same: those who don't understand prophesy bitcoin limit in the N-sum, but after a while bitcoin will still surprise everyone with its new indicators.

Indeed, PayPal already looks like a dinosaur, which many have not even heard of, don't know what it is and, of course, have never used it, despite hundreds of millions of users (that's just how many of them remain active at the current time). Now there are plenty of other alternatives. The introduction of cryptocurrencies into their system on the part of the paypal looks not only like an attempt to keep up with modern trends, but also to survive in its niche.

The only thing that I can think of regards to this is who are still using PayPal to purchase bitcoin? Didn't someone in this forum posted about the issues that they've when they used PayPal to buy bitcoin there? And if this is going to be true and that there's a possibility that it might affect the prices, I guess it's a high time for us to accumulate as much USD we have right now because you don't want to miss out when the price of bitcoin plummets.

Wait, are there people who think that PayPal (temporarily) stopping the crypto purchases can actually somehow affect bitcoin price? Bitcoin held very well even FTX collapse/scam, this market is way more mature than 3-4 years ago but if someone thinks that PayPal has some kind of power in crypto world then we still have a long, long way to go...

It's not like they are the only way to get BTC crypto in the UK
Plenty of other options. But, they are so large that they probably do have a lot more casual crypto users then we think they do, just because of their size.

Oh, I want to get BTC
I already have a PP account.
Yes my crypto friends tell me to go elsewhere and that the PP rates are not great. But I have an account and it's quick and simple.

That kind of thing. We all have inertia over things like this even if we don't want to admit it. And it costs us. But we do it anyway.
From using a credit card that may not have the best rewards to not moving money to and account with better interest rates to buying crypto at PP.
It just falls to the convenience factor.

Now, lets see if the halt is real or just something that has spread.

-Dave

PayPal to me doesn't have such capacity to influence the market and control the bitcoin and besides does it has any direct market such ( trading whereby someone will buy and sell through the app or their official website) that could possibly influence bitcoin price, if they suspend their service.
No! I didn't see that capacity or market volume to control bitcoin price if they announced their suspension of operation, even as that, stronger things (events) had already happened to the market but yet did survive the market pressure there's no way bitcoin could face any strong rejection in price.

Btw, there are some comments you aren't meant to take into heart or action since you didn't know the experience of such poster as I believe such comment could be likely be dropped by newbies or an amateur who doesn't know what they are saying ( such group are comprises with lots of individuals) so such comment are inevitably to come over time.