PayPal Enables Bitcoin Transactions For Merchants Selling Digital Goods

Bitcoin’s momentum among key merchants and platforms on the web keeps accelerating.

After hinting at it a few weeks ago when Braintree enabled Bitcoin-based transactions for PayPal developers, the company is now enabling Bitcoin across the PayPal network for merchants of digital goods.

The company has expressed interest in bitcoin for a while, with eBay CEO John Donahoe saying in the past that it would play an “important role” in the company’s future. Now that large players from Overstock to Wikipedia are now relying on the cryptocurrency for a part of their transactions or donations, PayPal is stepping in.

Through partnerships with BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin, PayPal will let its merchants accept bitcoin for digital goods transactions. They decided to go with a handful of launch partners instead of a single one, as PayPal’s Braintree did with Coinbase earlier this month. To be clear, this isn’t about adding Bitcoin to PayPal’s digital wallet and it’s only in North America for the moment. These are baby steps for now.

“This is a huge endorsement to the digital currency community,” said GoCoin CEO Steve Beauregard.

PayPal will earn transaction revenue through referral fees, which are pretty common throughout the payments world.

“PayPal is playing the role of the intermediary, but the cost will be left up to the merchant and the payment processor,” said Scott Ellison, who is PayPal’s senior director of competitive intelligence and corporate strategy.

A few weeks ago at TechCrunch Disrupt, Braintree CEO Bill Ready said that it was adding Bitcoin as a payment to its SDK.

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

MoviePass drops pricing to under $7 per month, if you opt for the annual plan

MoviePass, the subscription service that lets consumers pay a monthly fee to see unlimited movies in theaters across the U.S., is slashing its prices yet again. The company announced today it’s now offering its service for $6.95 per month, down from the current price of $9.95 per month, when customers commit to a one-year subscription plan. That works out to a flat fee of $89.95 annually. The deal is a limited-time promotion, as opposed to a permanent pricing change, but MoviePass didn’t say how long the offer is valid. However, it is open to both new and existing subscribers – the latter who would receive a 25 percent savings on their current subscription if switching over to the annual plan. This is not the first time that MoviePass has dropped its pricing. When the company introduced its $9.95 per month, one-movie-per-day plan this August, down from $15 for 2 movies per month (or more in select markets like L.A. and NYC, and going as high as $50), it saw so many new sign-up...

ASUS VivoBook X202E Windows 8 Touchscreen Laptop Review And Giveaway

It wasn’t very long ago when prices of touchscreen Windows 8 laptops soared beyond $1000. Thankfully, those days are behind us, and portable computers can easily be purchased – touchscreen and all – for under $500. That’s precisely the demographic in which the ASUS VivoBook X202E falls. When compared to a high-end laptop, its specifications might seem modest, but for laptop buyers just looking for a way to browse the web, watch videos, use basic apps, and not spend too much money, something in this budget is perfectly suitable. The question is, of course, how does the ASUS VivoBook X202E compare to others on the market, and is it the one which you should be spending your hard-earned money on? Well, you’re just going to have to keep reading to find out. Best of all, we are giving away an ASUS VivoBook X202E to one lucky winner. Keep reading for your chance to take home this Windows 8 touchscreen laptop! Introducing the ASUS VivoBook X202E Laptop The ASUS VivoBook X202...

Kiran Upadhyay

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