Cash & Liquidity ManagementPaymentsMicrosoft Quietly Gives Green Light to Bitcoin

Microsoft Quietly Gives Green Light to Bitcoin

Global computing giant Microsoft has tacitly given its approval to bitcoin, by adding the digital currency as a payment option for a variety of digital content across its online platforms.

However, the integration is only partial at this stage. Microsoft said it will not accept the digital currency as a direct payment method, although did not rule out a broader integration taking place in the future.

Eric Lockard, corporate vice president of Universal Store at Microsoft, said in a blog post: “The use of digital currencies such as bitcoin, while not yet mainstream, is growing beyond the early enthusiasts. We expect this growth to continue and allowing people to use bitcoin to purchase our products and services now allows us to be at the front edge of that trend.”

Microsoft itself announced: “You can only use bitcoin to add money to your Microsoft account and then purchase digital goods at select Microsoft online stores. You can’t use bitcoin to purchase Microsoft products and services directly at this time.”

The decision nonetheless makes Microsoft one of the largest tech companies yet to embrace bitcoin, and follows a similar move by Dell earlier this year. Microsoft had already begun to quietly support the currency by adding a bitcoin converter to its search engine, Bing, in February this year.

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