Now accepts digital currency
Web publishing platform WordPress is accepting international digital currency Bitcoin in lieu of credit cards or PayPal to pay for upgrades. Orlando-based BitPay, which helps online merchants accept Bitcoin as payment, is to process payments on behalf of WordPress.
The company’s service works by converting digital currency received from shoppers into dollars and guarantees an exchange rate for merchants. Andy Skelton, an engineer with Automattic, the company that owns WordPress, revealed that the basis of the new arrangement with Bitcoin is to allow greater access to its services.
Writing in his blog he said: “PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control.”
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