Case in point: on March 1, PayPal filed a patent application  for an "expedited virtual currency transaction system", first flagged by Bitcoin. 

Here is how Paypal explains the patent:

Expedited virtual currency transactions are provided by identifying a first user primary wallet associated with a virtual currency and including a first user primary wallet private key. First user secondary wallets are created that each include a respective first user secondary wallet private key, and a respective virtual currency transaction is performed using the first user primary wallet private key to transfer predefined amounts of the virtual currency from the first user primary wallet to each of the first user secondary wallets such that first user secondary wallets are provided with different predefined amounts of the virtual currency. Subsequently, an instruction is received to transfer a payment amount to a second user, and the second user is allocated a subset of the first user secondary wallet private keys included in respective first user secondary wallets that are associated with predefined amounts of the virtual currency that equal the payment amount.