CoinDesk reported that BitPay completed a $30 million financing round, this is the largest ever financing round for a bitcoin related company. The round was led by Index Ventures, and included Yahoo founder Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Felicis Ventures, PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Horizons Ventures, RRE Ventures, Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson and TTV Capital. As … [Read more...]
China Censoring The Conversation Around Global Bitcoin Summit
Back in December the central bank of China put a stop to all Bitcoin transactions. This caused certain exchanges to shut down and created a stir among many crypto currency enthusiasts in the country. The IB Times is now reporting that China has told the media they cannot write about a Global Bitcoin summit that is coming up in Beijing. From the article: The Chinese authorities have ordered … [Read more...]
Xapo Looks To Bring Bitcoin Debit Card to Market
Robert MCMillan of Wired wrote an article on the upcoming Bitcoin debit card from Xapo. The article points out that there are some other prepaid Bitcoin cards out there, the author noted they feel rather "fly by night". Xapo has actually raised $20 million in VC and is looking to comply with U.S. law. From the article: Bitcoin may be the future of digital money, but it has a big problem here … [Read more...]
Tokyo Court Rejects Bankruptcy Protection for Mt.Gox
Yuri Kagema a writer for the AP, reported that Mt. Gox will not received bankruptcy protection in Japan and will be liquidated. The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo is headed for liquidation after a court rejected its bankruptcy protection application. Mt. Gox said Wednesday the Tokyo District Court decided the company, which was a trading platform and storehouse for the bitcoin … [Read more...]
Ebay to Create A Place For Virtual Currencies
Ebay has created a new category for Virtual Currency. People will be able to list crpyto currencies for sale along with mining related activities. It looks like the listings for actual currencies must be done as a classified ad. CoinDesk wrote: eBay’s main US site has introduced a category for ‘Virtual Currency’, with listings for dozens of bitcoin and altcoin-related activities – including … [Read more...]
Mark Karpeles Ordered to come to the US to discuss Mt. Gox Bankruptcy
Reuters reported that the Mark Karpeles has to come to the US to discuss the Mt.Gox Chapter 15 bankruptcy. The company filed bankruptcy in Japan but are also dealing with a class action filed in Chicago. Last month, Karpeles asked a Dallas court to grant Mt. Gox Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection, in part to put a stop to a class action that had been filed by U.S. customers in Chicago federal … [Read more...]
Breaking: IRS Rules Bitcoin (virtual Currency) Will Be Treated As Property Not Currency
The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that it will treat Bitcoin and other virtual currencies like property, like stock or other intangible property rather than currency. If the virtual currency is held for investment, any gains would be treated as capital gains. The top long-term capital gains tax rate is 20%, while the top ordinary income-tax rate is 39.6%. The IRS notice also made clear … [Read more...]