PayPal has partnered with three leading bitcoin payments processors in order to enable limited support for the digital currency, the company announced today.

Merchants in North America selling intangibles such as music, games, and ringtones may now accept bitcoin through PayPal Payments Hub, the company's service for digital goods retailers. The company says it is "giving our digital goods merchants an easy, one-stop way to test the waters with this new form of payment."

PayPal is working with Coinbase, which has raised funding from Silicon Valley investors including Andreessen Horowitz; BitPay, which is backed by Richard Branson, among others; and GoCoin, the smallest of the three, which is backed by angel investors and bitcoin companies.

Bitcoin advocates working toward making the currency mainstream have long called for PayPal, arguably the leader in internet-based payments, to embrace the fledgling currency. Some members of the community were thrilled in May of 2013 when PayPal president David Marcus called the currency "truly fascinating" in one interview and seemingly endorsed it over near-field communication, the technology Apple is using to enable mobile payments in its new phones.

PayPal is proceeding cautiously, however:

To be clear, today’s news does not mean that PayPal has added Bitcoin as a currency in our digital wallet or that Bitcoin payments will be processed on our secure payments platform. PayPal has always embraced innovation, but always in ways that make payments safer and more reliable for our customers. Our approach to Bitcoin is no different. That’s why we’re proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop.

The announcement comes just two weeks after PayPal announced its Braintree unit, which enables mobile payments in apps, would integrate bitcoin payments.