PayPal and Bitcoin would seem to be natural enemies. After all, Bitcoin allows users to do what PayPal does, only without the fees.
Despite that, though, PayPal seems to be warming up to the idea. PayPal founder Peter Thiel has always been a fan of Bitcoin, and his company is starting to move in the direction of embracing it.
BrainTree
Braintree, a PayPal subsidiary, announced last month that it would be integrating Bitcoin into its platform. And now it’s made good on that promise.
The company will be partnering with Coinbase to facilitate the company’s Bitcoin transactions, though it isn’t clear exactly how they’ll work together.
Speaking to TechCrunch, BrainTree CEO Bill Ready explained that the reason for the embrace is that it’s just not convenient to use a credit card on a mobile device. Entering a credit card number is tedious and annoying. As a result, there’s a massive disparity between ecommerce conversion rates on mobile and on a desktop.
“The reason for that gap is that there’s a two-thirds to 75 percent fall off in conversion. People just bail out.”
BrainTree’s Bitcoin launch partners include StubHub, ParkWhiz, and Threadless, among others. The company hopes to improve mobile conversion rates through this program.
PayPal Itself Getting Onboard?
PayPal released a teaser video yesterday called PayPal voices. The video cycles through a number of different faces as a large number of voices talk about PayPal’s service, and what can be done with it. At the 0:09 mark, the video says “we can spend Bitcoin with a tap.”
PayPal On The Road To Bitcoin Acceptance?
No comments:
Post a Comment