1. Coinbase Raises US$75 Million in Largest VC Investment into Bitcoin Startups So Far

On Tuesday, Charlie Richards reported on Coinbase’s huge round of funding.

“One of the investors, former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, stated that putting money in a company like Coinbase is ‘a better way to bet than investing directly in the currency.’ He echoes similar sentiments of Magma Ventures, who stated following their first investment in a Bitcoin company earlier this month that they also ‘weren’t investing in Bitcoin, but in the blockchain and what it enables.’”

2. PayPal's Braintree Is Now Open to US Merchants

On Thursday, Alyssa Hertig reported that Braintree had launched the beta version of its bitcoin payment processing for merchants in the US. Said Braintree partner Coinbase:

“Braintree merchants can now accept bitcoin by creating a Coinbase account and adding a few lines of code to their existing Braintree v.zero integration.”

3. Bill Gates Takes Digital Currency Advocacy to Primetime TV

Also on Thursday, William Suberg reported on comments made by Bill Gates during an interview with late night host Jimmy Fallon. Said Gates:

“Poor people don’t have bank accounts and so when they have an emergency [or] they want to borrow or save, it’s very tough. [With] small transactions, the fees are just too high when you have banks and ATMs and all that. If we take the cellphone and just use digital currency, then you can have all those financial services.”

4. SendChat Integrates Cryptocurrency into Messaging App for 50 Million Global Users

On Tuesday, Diana Ngo reported on messaging app SendChat, which has introduced a feature that will allow users to send cryptocurrencies to one another.

“SendChat uses the same open source script and infrastructure as Telegram, a popular cloud-based mobile and desktop app that focuses on speed and security that currently counts over 50 million users around the world.”

5. Bitcointalk Forum Down Again Amid Data Retention Problems

On Thursday, William Suberg reported that the popular Bitcointalk Forum had become inaccessible for the second time in two months.

Bitcointalk announced in the early hours of Friday morning EST that it was back online.

Elsewhere

  • A Canadian entrepreneur living in Costa Rica has been kidnapped [Spanish language media], and his captors are demanding US$500,000, payable in bitcoins.

Market activity

The bitcoin price this week made a steady upward climb out of its hole at under US$200. On Wednesday, there was a bump over the course of about six hours that saw the price rise from about US$211 to above US$230, where it remained more or less stably through the end of the work week.

Exchange trade volume peaked on Thursday at more than US$7.8 million right after that price climb.

All throughout the week, the number of transactions was remarkably steady from day to day, falling between about 94,000 transactions per day and just a bit over 100,000 transactions per day, the high point coming on Wednesday.

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