In October of last year, tech entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire announced he would soon be launching a new bitcoin-related project called Circle. It was hailed by insiders as one of the biggest developments in the bitcoin to date, launching with over $9 million in venture capital investment. A few months later, another $17 million in VC…
BTC China CEO and Bitcoin Foundation board-member elect Bobby Lee thinks China may be blocking bitcoin-related sites. Speaking with CoinDesk today, Lee said that he’s hearing regular reports of users being unable to access websites such as Coinbase, Blockchain and BTC-e in otherwise normal browsing sessions. Lee reports that the “locking of these websites seems…
At a hearing in federal court yesterday, U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman gave Sunlot Holdings and a collection of Mt.Gox creditors preliminary approval to move forward with a settlement plan for the defunct Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange. Under the agreement, Sunlot and its partners would acquire Mt.Gox’s debits and assets for a single bitcoin. The move…
Tech entrepreneur and investor Halsey Minor knows a thing or two about being ahead of the curve. In 1993, he founded one-time tech haven CNET, selling it to CBS 15 years later for $1.7 billion. He’s also a co-founder of Salesforce.com (currently valued between $15 and $35 billion) and the founder of venture capital firm…
Earlier this month, Chinese bitcoin and litecoin exchange FXBTC announced it would be shutting down due to increased regulatory pressure from the People’s Bank of China. In an attempt to prevent customer losses from the inability to access its accounts, the exchange moved quickly and strongly urged all customers to withdraw their funds as soon…
Bitcoin purchasing platform Bittylicious announced an exiting development just shy of its one-year anniversary: E.U. citizens are now able to use credit and debit cards to purchase bitcoin through the site. The U.K.-based company already offers a standard payment options, such as bank transfers and mobile payments, but the ability to irreversibly purchace BTC through…
TechCrunch is reporting that Atlanta-based bitcoin-payment processor BitPay has received a new round of investment funding from Index Ventures, with Virgin’s Richard Branson and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang also participating. If true, the rumored $30 million investment would be the single largest funding round for a bitcoin startup. The report claims that BitPay’s new valuation…
In terms of total assets and market capitalization, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is the largest bank in the world. The ICBC controls nearly $15.5 trillion in assets, and had a net income of more than $200 billion dollars in 2011. As powerful as the ICBC is, however, it still answers to…
Under increasing pressure from the People’s Bank of China, two of the “big five” Chinese bitcoin exchanges have announced plans to alter their business models. Although the PBoC issued new rules in December dramatically limiting access to the country’s banking system for bitcoin-based business, those rules have only been meaningfully enforced in recent weeks. Several…
A venture capital group headed by tech investor Tim Draper and former AOL CEO Steve Case has raised $4 million in seed money for “white-label” exchange startup Vaurum. Based in California, Vaurum is one of many companies working to build high-volume bitcoin trading platforms that can be easily integrated into existing commodity and stock-trading systems….