Get All Access for $5/mo

PayPal Embraces Bitcoin Payments, Partners With BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin PayPal is officially warming up to the cryptocurrency, though it is proceeding gradually and with caution.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

PayPal is warming up to Bitcoin in a big way. Finally.

The 152 million registered user ecommerce powerhouse announced in a blog post this afternoon that it is joining forces with today's leading Bitcoin processors -- BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin -- to at last enable its digital goods merchants to accept the cryptocurrency. This means PayPal sellers will be able to get paid in Bitcoin for digital wares like games, music and ringtones.

Related: Finally: Bitcoin Is Coming to Merchants Who Use PayPal's Braintree

"PayPal is excited about all the innovations taking place in payments these days," Scott Ellison, PayPal's senior director of corporate strategy said in the announcement. "More choices in how people create value, share it, buy, sell and trade it – that's exactly what PayPal is all about. And we believe Bitcoin offers unique opportunities as more people and businesses experiment with it."

To start, Bitcoin payments integration will be available via PayPal's Payments Hub to PayPal online merchants in North America, that is, with the exception of pre-sellers -- merchants who ask for payment in advance for a product or service it will later provide.

Related: How Bitcoin Is Fueling a New Payments Battlefield

The San Jose, Calif.-based company, founded by tech moguls Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk, along with other members of the original "PayPal Mafia," did not say how soon Bitcoin payments integration would be complete. However, it did carefully point out that "today's news does not mean that PayPal has added Bitcoin as a currency in our digital wallet or that Bitcoin payments will be processed on our secure payments platform." PayPal, owned by eBay, also noted that it will proceed gradually and cautiously in embracing bitcoin, "until we see how things develop."

Earlier this month, PayPal announced that businesses working with Braintree, the mobile payment processing unit it acquired for $800 million in cash last September, will soon be able to integrate "One Touch" Bitcoin payments via Braintree's "v.zero" software development kit (SDK) and its alliance partnership with Coinbase. The day the news broke, Wired called PayPal's growing support of the cryptocash "the best thing that could happen to Bitcoin," with the potential to seriously polish its Silk Road-tarnished image in the public eye.

Related: BitPay Raises Record $30 Million in Series A Funding, Biggest in Bitcoin Industry Yet

"When the internet's most mainstream brand for moving money embraces a technology," Wired reporter Marcus Wohlsen wrote, "it's hard to see that system as a fringe operation."

Meanwhile, today at 1:56 p.m. ET, the price of Bitcoin inched up on the news to $405.81, according to the CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index. The world's first digital currency has been in the midst of an erratic price decline since July.

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Side Hustle

The Side Hustle He Started in His College Apartment Turned Into a $70,000-a-Month Income Stream — Then Earned Nearly $2 Million Last Year

Kyle Morrand and his college roommates loved playing retro video games — and the pastime would help launch his career.

Business News

A Former Corporate Lawyer Now Makes Six Figures on YouTube — Here's How She Does It

Here are the secrets to starting and growing a successful YouTube channel, according to a YouTuber with millions of subscribers.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Growing a Business

How to Determine The Ideal Length of Your Marketing Emails Your Customers Will Actually Read

Wondering how long your marketing emails should be? Here's what consumers say — so you can send them exactly what they like.

Business News

Y Combinator Helped Launch Reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox. Here's What I Learned From Its Free Startup School.

The famed startup accelerator offers a free course on building a business — and answers five pressing questions for founders.