PayPal customers in the US can now pay at millions of online merchants around the world with bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum or bitcoin cash.
The Checkout with Crypto feature converts users' crypto holdings to fiat currency at checkout, with certainty of value and no additional transaction fees.
The option will automatically appear in the PayPal wallet at checkout for customers with sufficient cryptocurrency balance to cover an eligible purchase.
For businesses, PayPal says Checkout with Crypto provides a new way to get paid. All transactions are settled in USD and converted to the applicable currency.
The feature comes soon after PayPal began offering its users the chance to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal account.
Dan Schulman, CEO, PayPal, says: "As the use of digital payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of Checkout with Crypto continues our focus on driving mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, while continuing to offer PayPal customers choice and flexibility in the ways they can pay using the PayPal wallet.
"Enabling cryptocurrencies to make purchases at businesses around the world is the next chapter in driving the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies."
The move helped drive bitcoin's price up more than $1000 to over $59,000, building on gains seen yesterday when another traditional payments giant, Visa, demonstrated its seriousness about digital currencies by carrying out its first settlement transaction in the USD Coin stablecoin.