Coinbase Releases Tool For Merchants to Accept Cryptocurrencies

(Bloomberg) -- It may become a whole lot easier to use cryptocurrencies for payments.

Digital-assets exchange Coinbase Inc. is releasing a service for merchants to accept Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin payments, and deposit them into their own digital wallets, according to a blog post by the San Francisco-based company. The setup requires just an email address and a phone number.

The product, called Coinbase Commerce, can be directly integrated into a merchant’s checkout flow or added as a payment option on an e-commerce platform. Commerce platform Shopify, which was already accepting Bitcoin payments, is one of the first platforms to start using the service, Coinbase said.

Other merchants already taking cryptocurrencies are Overstock.com, Expedia Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

To contact the reporter on this story: Camila Russo in New York at crusso15@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael P. Regan at mregan12@bloomberg.net, Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Randall Jensen

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