Goldman Sachs just put a bunch of money into a Bitcoin startup

Goldman Sachs is jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon.

The New York Times reports that Goldman "struck a partnership with a major Chinese investment firm, IDG Capital Partners, to lead a $50 million investment into Circle Internet Financial, a start-up that aims to use the technology underlying Bitcoin to improve consumer payments."

Indeed, the future of Bitcoin does seem to be the technology which allows people to make digital payments instantly anywhere in the world, rather than the currency itself.

Here's more from the Times:

The founders of Circle are aiming to use Bitcoin to move into the burgeoning industry of peer-to-peer payments. The industry is currently led by companies like Venmo, a PayPal-owned application that allows friends to quickly send one another money rather than using a check or a bank transfer, which can take days to go through.

While Circle will, in the near future, offer much the same services as Venmo - including free, instant money transfers - the company hopes that Bitcoin will allow it to move money with same ease across international borders, something Venmo cannot do.

And as long as payments are instantly converted to and from fiat currency, there's very little exposure to Bitcoin's notorious volatility.