Skrill becomes latest payment service to support Bitcoin

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Online payments service Skrill has become the latest service of its kind to support bitcoin, following an announcement posted to the company’s website.

From July 25, Skrill will allow its users to buy and sell bitcoin for the first time, in addition to several other smaller cryptocurrencies. These can be traded against any of the over 40 fiat currencies supported by the e-wallet service, for maximum flexibility.

Customers can access the cryptocurrency option by clicking ‘Exchange’ from within the Skrill account, and in just a few clicks, can buy and sell across a range of fiat and cryptocurrencies.

With support for bitcoin, this could eventually prove useful for sending payments in BCH between Skrill account holders, a feature expected to be added in future.

According to the press release, Skrill buys and sells cryptocurrency through a ‘recognised cryptocurrency exchange’, before settling against user accounts.

The launch sees Skrill become the latest big-name online operator to embrace bitcoin and BCH, and follows on from several other cryptocurrency exchange and wallet services launching for bitcoin in recent months.

Part of the Paysafe Group, the development at Skrill could ultimately be replicated across other payment services under the same holding company, including Neteller.

CEO Lorenzo Pellegrino said that being able to trade bitcoin through Skrill accounts would appeal to consumers, as a simple way to dabble in the cryptocurrency markets.

“The world of cryptocurrency trading is exciting and dynamic, and our digital wallet service very much lends itself to this environment. I’m confident that the ability to trade in cryptocurrencies quickly and easily through Skrill will appeal to consumers both now and in the future. We know many people want to experiment with cryptocurrency trading but don’t know where to start and we’ve made the entire process very straightforward.”

For the time being, the service only allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, with no ability to send crypto between user accounts.

However, Skrill have noted that this is a feature that will be added in the near future, which will enable users to send payment in bitcoin to other Skrill account holders.