PayPal, eBay's payments subsidiary, may be closer to accepting Bitcoin in the future, with the company saying it is well-placed to exploit the disruptive potential of the virtual currency.

The online payments processor handled no payments in 1998 but this year had 128 million active accounts and processed $US41 billion ($39.5 billion) in payments in three months.

Bitcoins. Credit:Flickr/zachcopley

David Marcus, president of eBay's PayPal unit, has called Bitcoin "truly fascinating" and said PayPal had thought about adding Bitcoin to the 20-odd real currencies it supports.

"I think for us at PayPal it's just a question of whether Bitcoin will make its way to PayPal's funding instrument or not, and, you know, we're kind of thinking about it," said Marcus in an interview with Bloomberg last week.