Today eBay subsidiary Braintree, which provides a platform for companies like Uber and Airbnb to accept payments, confirmed that it would be partnering with Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase to let users pay for things in Bitcoin from a Coinbase wallet. The news is big for Bitcoin supporters who have been looking to large retailers and service providers to give the virtual currency mass-market appeal.

Braintree, which was purchased by eBay subsidiary PayPal last year for $800 million, builds the software that a handful of big companies use to offer online and mobile payments to customers. In a blog post, CEO Bill Ready said that “in the coming months” Braintree's customers would be able to “add bitcoin to their existing payment methods and provide an elegant, adaptive user interface for consumers to pay in bitcoin with their Coinbase wallet.”

It's unclear which, if any, merchants have decided to incorporate Bitcoin into their accepted payment methods with Braintree. Still, the development shows that PayPal is thinking about bringing alternative forms of payment into its fold. “This is PayPal making a move to embrace Bitcoin,” Ready told TechCrunch today.

Coinbase has recently made a number of fruitful partnerships with companies hoping to accept Bitcoin. Most famously, online retailer Overstock.com deals in Bitcoin using Coinbase, and Reeds Jewelers and Wikipedia have also jumped on the bandwagon. TechCrunch notes that Bitcoin users who want to buy things on Braintree-supported sites must have a Coinbase wallet, but it seems that retailers will be able to accept the virtual currency with little headache on their part: “the integration will support instant exchanges, meaning that the merchant doesn’t have to handle Bitcoin directly and can get an immediate conversion rate between a fiat currency and Bitcoin.”

Braintree also announced that it would be using a single-touch payments system, which it will support on iOS and offer through an open beta for Android users. The company's service, called OneTouch, circumvents the need for usernames and passwords and “offers a variety of payment methods including widely used consumer wallets like PayPal, Venmo, major credit/debit cards, and whatever new payment methods may emerge in the future,” the company notes on its website.