PayPal has expanded its support for bitcoin payments by joining up with three payment providers, reports Bloomberg.

Bitcoin-payment providers Coinbase, BitPay, and GoCoin are the newest companies to team up with PayPal to allow online transactions such as purchasing multimedia and other digital content using the virtual currency, said PayPal's Senior Director of Corporate Strategy, Scott Ellison.

"We chose to work with BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin because of our commitment to offering innovative and safer ways for businesses to accept payments. All three companies have taken steps to ensure that they know their customers and that those customers are offered certain protections," Ellison said in a statement. "We believe digital goods merchants will be excited to work with these industry-leading companies to sell ringtones, games and music and get paid with Bitcoin."

Ellison mentioned, however, that these payment systems "will be available to merchants in North America first," and added that "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."

Instead of officially adding Bitcoin as a currency, Forbes.com reports, PayPal will be giving up the processing and handling of bitcoin payments to its three new partners. For now, though, only online merchants offering digital content will be able to handle Bitcoin payments through either GoCoin, BitPay, or Coinbase.

"I think this is a monumental moment," said Steve Beauregard, GoCoin CEO with regards to the news.

Beauregard said in an email to CoinTelegraph that "GoCoin will be launching a number of new coins in the coming month. It will be the option of the merchants which they elect to accept. From our perspective they should accept all because we insulate them from the risk."

"In my view, PayPal has done their homework to understand the benefits to their merchants of accepting digital currencies. They are also being very strategic in partnering with the big three industry leaders each with very different approaches and with different vertical market focus," Beauregard added.