PayPal partners BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin for Bitcoin payments

Under the terms of the partnership, PayPal digital goods merchants will accept Bitcoin with an integration via the PayPal Payments Hub. Customers with a Bitcoin wallet will be able to pay participating merchants in Bitcoin for games, music, videos, news, e-books and other digital content. Merchants using the PayPal Payments Hub can create a BitPay merchant account and provide the API credentials into the Payments Hub admin. This will be initially available to merchants in North America.

According to the PayPal blog, “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 has always embraced innovation, but always in ways that make payments safer and more reliable for our customers. Our approach to Bitcoin is no different. That’s why we’re proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop.”

Following the PayPal announcement, Bitcoin prices have jumped by over 12%. On 22 September 2014, Bitcoin prices traded near the lowest level since April 2014, amid concerns about a possible regulation of the virtual currency.