Why everyone has PYPL wrong and the hidden untapped value in PayPal

I've heard it all: "Value Trap, Dying business, Competition"

Let's start from the $310 price it was in 2021. There was absolutely zero reason Paypal should have ever traded this high. That puts PayPal close to a $300B valuation with $4B net income. It was trading for 80X earnings.

Let's talk about the positives:
\#1. PayPal Bans - Have you heard those stories? People upset PayPal banned them for when they were underage. What does this truly mean? This means most of it's revenue today is high value and has been fully tested for fraud prevention.

\#2. Mark Grether - **PAYPALS AD MANAGER releases in early 2026. I'm getting emails.** The full reason anyone in the last 2 years should have invested in PayPal was due to their ads platform. However, PayPal made a huge mistake here not making this the main focus. Who is Mark? Well, in 2019 Mark sold his company to Amazon. Amazon then took it's ad unit from $10B to $30B in revenue. Uber hired Mark. In 2022 to 2024, Mark took Uber's ad business to $0 to $1B in revenue.

What is PayPals Ad Manager? Let's act as if this was my own website. My post will get thousands of clicks but no monetization. Now, with PayPal ads, I can integrate their SDK into my website, and within minutes start running ads on this post. (Not this actual post but if it was my site)

This allows for PayPal to get high margin dollars. For example, if PayPal can scale their AD unit to $2B revenue at 50% margins, they would go from $5-6B net income, to $6-7B net income, and slowly go higher overtime. This is the setup the stock needs to go $100+

\#3. PayPal Integrations - People seem to forget, PayPal has spent the last 20 years accepting PayPal. This means users/businesses all get free advertising to PayPal. No matter what, naturally PayPal will grow for the next 5-10 years. Does it need more social growth? People choosing to actually want it? Yes. As an online business, if I'm not accepting PayPal I'm at a huge disadvantage. People use PayPal for their chargeback protection. I'm confident anytime I buy with PayPal I'm protected.

Side Note: PayPal's and Venmo's cashback and credit card programs are some of the highest cashback you can get anywhere on the internet.

**The moat remains in ads. PayPal's entire focus needs to shift to running ads.**

**Also if you bought PayPal in the last 2 years, to sell now, ask yourself, why? PayPal ads release in early 2026. This is the product that will drive growth. We haven't even seen it yet.**