Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/08/15/ebay_paypal_braintree_bitcoin_talks/
eBay in talks with Bitcoin firms about payments processing
Online bazaar's Braintree subsidiary chatting up Coinbase and others
Posted in Channel, 15th August 2014 11:45 GMT
PayPal is reportedly in talks with Bitcoin firms to integrate the e-currency into its recently acquired Braintree payments system, according to the Wall Street Journal.
eBay’s subsidiary has been chatting to Bitcoin facilitators like Coinbase about getting Braintree to accept the virtual cash, but has yet to reach any agreements, familiar people told the newspaper. eBay did not respond to a request for comment from El Reg.
PayPal snaffled payments portal Braintree in the relatively recent past, paying $800m for its rival in September last year. The company specialised in mobile transactions when PayPal picked it up and is used by companies like Uber, GitHub and Airbnb to process payments.
The familiar people mentioned that eBay and PayPal themselves wouldn’t initially be accepting Bitcoin even if a deal was struck, though that could change over time.
Nevertheless, a deal would be a nice piece of validation for the cryptocurrency, which has been experiencing a lot of negative scrutiny since its main trading house, Mt Gox, went bankrupt earlier this year.
The sudden collapse of the exchange has prompted government regulators from Europe to Canada and beyond to start poking their nose into the previously lawless territory of the digital money. ®