PayPal is dipping its toes even further into the waters of Bitcoin payments. How long until the company is ready to make a real splash? The company announced this week that it's establishing working relationships with three Bitcoin processors. The three companies PayPal have committed to work with are BitPay, Coinbase and Gocoin.
PayPal said:
"We chose to work with BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin because of our commitment to offering innovative and safer ways for businesses to accept payments. All three companies have taken steps to ensure that they know their customers and that those customers are offered certain protections."
Bitcoin has exploded this year and its growth has far surpassed any other previous attempts at establishing a virtual 'crypto' currency. PayPal's move further legitimizes the currency and adds real weight to the claims of Bitcoin evangelists.
Scott Green, the founder of UK Bitcoin price comparison site Bittycoin, told the BBC:
"I think we will look back at this announcement from PayPal as being a major turning point in the mainstream adoption both of Bitcoin and its payment system being taken seriously by businesses."
This news comes after PayPal announced its working relationship with Braintree earlier this month. Merchants who utilise Braintree will soon be able to accept Bitcoin payments.
It’s all good news for Bitcoin believers, but PayPal is certainly not rushing into anything. Their new partnerships will essentially facilitate bitcoin payments, the company will not handle them directly. And for the time being, the new options will only be available in the USA. The kind of goods that can be purchased using Bitcoin also stress PayPal's hesitancy to fully embrace Bitcoin. Only digital goods, such as Music, games and ringtones will be available.
To quote PayPal itself:
"We're proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop."
By Matthew Taylor 26th September 2014
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