eBay, an e-commerce giant, has added a “virtual currency” category, which gives users an opportunity to buy and sell digital currencies like bitcoin. Nevertheless eBay has not yet accepted bitcoin as an official currency, its recognition has become an important milestone since it may attract millions of bitcoin fans.
The “virtual currency” category is divided into mining contracts, currency and miners subcategories. Multiple entries for bitcoin and altcoin trades, as well as mining hardware and “mining contracts” will let the investors to buy per-gigahash shares. The full list of services is available only for the US users today, despite the fact the UK eBay site has had a “virtual currency” section since February. It should be noted that eBay has always been at odds with digital currencies. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) called bitcoin a potential competitor to PayPal in the beginning of 2014, because of its 2-3% fee for transactions. However, eBay has already applied for patents necessary for digital currency exchange and other types of electronic payments. PayPal is also weighing the idea of accepting bitcoin as a currency. The President of the company David Marcus notes that he considers digital currencies “truly fascinating” and adds that he is “kind of thinking about it”. Meanwhile eBay President John Donohoe doesn’t exclude a possibility of future integration of PayPal and bitcoin, saying: “We’re looking at bitcoin closely.” Bitcoin has already proven that it can do well as a traded currency. It has been existing since 2009, but didn't really succeed until 2011 when it cost $2 per coin. By 2013, the currency value had increased to $20 per coin, and then jumped to $266 last April. Within the past two months, it had another price leap and is now worth about $1,000. Ekaterina Blinova, Source: The Voice of Russia
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