Modest Acquired By Paypal, Bringing Bitcoin

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Modest Acquired By Paypal, Bringing Bitcoin

By Ian Demartino - min read
Updated 22 May 2020

Modest is a mobile e-commerce solution that prides itself on bringing the simplicity of services like Amazon’s one-click buy feature to the mobile realm. Today, Paypal has announced that they have acquired Modest and it will be added to the Braintree division. We have been told that Modest customers will be able to integrate Coinbase for Bitcoin payments

Modest was started by Harper Reed (who I interviewed for CoinTelegraph not too long ago) and Dylan Richard. The two worked together on Obama’s reelection campaign, acting as the CTO and lead engineer respectively.

Braintree was acquired by Paypal back in 2013 for $800 million. Its purpose is to act as a one stop shop for all online payment methods, enabling customers to accept multiple forms of payment through one gateway, while also handling all the security issues.

Today’s purchase of Modest should enable them to fast track those services to the mobile realm as well, perhaps by utilizing the talent from Modest and not necessarily its technology. One idea is to extend Braintree’s “buyable pins” from Instagram to the mobile realm. In a statement released on Paypal’s corporate blog, they explain how Modest could extend that functionality.

“This new category of shopping is called ‘contextual commerce’. A great example of this is Pinterest’s Buyable Pins which – in conjunction with PayPal’s Braintree platform – make it possible for tens of millions of Pinners to securely buy products pinned from merchants such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Gardener’s Supply Company, and Michaels in just a few taps on an iPhone or iPad.
At PayPal we are always striving to innovate commerce experiences and make them better for both merchants and shoppers. [. . .] Modest allows merchants to offer an end-to-end experience that makes selling on any platform easier and simpler. They have built exceptional mobile technology and bring deep talent in contextual commerce to PayPal.”

When we asked if the move would enable Modest users to accept bitcoin, we were told that Modest’s products and services would be come a part of Braintree’s SDK offering, which has support for Coinbase and should therefore allow merchants to accept bitcoin.

The news is certainly a welcome one to bitcoin users, who have been faced with a lot of bad news lately, likely due to the community split over block sizes.

While the Modest/Braintree news won’t help solve the community and technical issues plaguing bitcoin, it should enable bitcoin payments through more methods and that has a value of its own.

We will keep you up to date with everything Modest/Paypal/Braintree related in the coming days.