Is a Bitcoin Integration on the Horizon for PayPal?

In what might be the biggest news this year for Bitcoin, eBay CEO John Donahoe told shareholders yesterday that the company is “actively considering” integrating Bitcoin into PayPal.

During their annual shareholder meeting in San Jose, California, Carl Davis, Jr of the Silicon Valley Black Chamber of Commerce asked Donahoe what he thought of Bitcoin in regards to global trade. The CEO called it a new, exciting and emerging technology.

We think Bitcoin will play a very important role in the future. Exactly how that plays out, and how we can best take advantage of it and enable it with PayPal, that’s something we’re actively considering. It’s on our radar screen.

In January, Overstock.com began accepting the cryptocurrency followed by the announcement that TigerDirect would follow suit.

In addition to major merchants jumping on the bandwagon, ATMs are rolling out all across the world on a large scale. And it’s now possible to use bitcoin to make purchases at Amazon, Walmart, Macy’s, and Target using a service called Zinc Save. You can even buy Walmart giftcards with bitcoin using the San Francisco-based mobile gift card app provider Gyft.

If a company the size of Ebay, which claims to have over 300 million members worldwide, were to incorporate Bitcoin into its payment systems it would cause the greatest surge ever in terms of mainstream exposure for the digital currency. This news is without a doubt “out of this world”.

How do you think a PayPal bitcoin integration would affect the digital currency landscape? Log in below using your favorite social network and weigh in on the discussion.