Bitcoin Forum

Payments firm Braintree, a subsidiary of eBay and PayPal, is “in talks” with Coinbase and several other processing companies on the possibility of accepting bitcoin, according to a Wall Street Journal repor (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523411/facing-doubters-ibm-expands-plans-for-watson)t. Braintree provides payments software for a number of popular mobile applications including Uber, Airbnb, and GitHub.

The company, which was acquired by PayPal for $800m in December last year, was processing up to $12bn in payments annually at the time – $4bn of that via mobile apps. No matter which bitcoin processor Braintree may choose, accepting digital currency would represent another significant step in bitcoin’s lifecycle.

“People familiar with the matter” stressed that any deal would not include either eBay or PayPal accepting bitcoin for now, though senior executives including eBay CEO John Donahoe have at times expressed an interest in ways to accept digital currencies, even describing it as “inevitable”.


http://www.technews.org/paypal-subsidiary-braintree-on-verge-of-accepting-bitcoin/2913734/

I think that braintree is actually a subsidiary of eBay but that is really besides the point. I think this is great news and would likely lead to increased actual consumer adoption and merchant acceptance of bitcoin.

Consumers would want to start using (and use more) bitcoin because they would have additional examples of why bitcoin is so efficient and good way to spend money. Merchants would have a greater incentive to accept bitcoin for payment in order to stay competitive.