Bitcoin Buy

The giant e-commerce known as eBay has recently decided to add a ‘virtual currency’ section on their main US site, allowing users to purchase and sell digital currencies like bitcoin, as well as mining contracts and mining equipment.

Ebay has not accepted the use of bitcoin or any other digital currency as payment at the moment. Currently its the owner of the popular payment processing firm, Paypal, which has continued to compete against its rivals like bitcoin.

Going Digital.

The digital currency section for the US site has been divided into three subcategories those being, mining contracts, currency and miners. The mining contracts are for sellers to promise a fixed hash rate for working mining equipment for buy for a set of specific time at a price. The miners and mining contract sub categories have also some digital currency sales listed on the Auction and ‘Buy it Now’ option price.

During February, eBay had given permission for UK users to purchase and sell digital currencies. Although, the option was through the use of the UK sites classifieds section only. Deals made within the classified ad formats have means actual transaction of bitcoins have taken place outside of eBay’s jurisdiction.

Digital Currencies

During a filing with the US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), eBay had proclaimed bitcoins as a “potential competitor’ for PayPal. While PayPal has charged a 2-3% fee for processing transactions, payments using bitcoins could with done with negligible fees, since bitcoins can be transferred without the necessary need of going through banks or clearing houses.

Reports have also shown that eBay is in the process of creating a digital wallet for multiple purposes for currency, complementing Paypal, to avoid threat from the every increasing popularity of virtual currencies. During an interview with Bloomberg, John Donaho, CEO of eBay had commented that digital currencies can be integrated into PayPal and are not posing any serious threat to their business.

“There is nothing holding PayPal back from pursuing digital payments today, as part of eBay. In fact PayPal is pursuing digital payments and is the leading digital payments alternative in many different environments, ” Donahoe said.