October 21, 2014 - In This Issue:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bitnet Lands $14.5 Million Series A Funding to Rival Coinbase, BitPay

A group of traditional payments veterans has raised $14.5m to launch Bitnet, a bitcoin payments processor that aims to entice the largest merchants in the world to accept bitcoin.

 

Led by Highland Capital Partners, Bitnet's Series A round also included Rakuten, Japan's largest e-commerce site. Notably, Rakuten is not only providing funding, it will use Bitnet's bitcoin payments software.

 

John McDonnell, CEO of Bitnet, told CoinDesk the company has an enterprise-level platform for large retailers to begin accepting bitcoin and that it expects its offering to compete against established market players such as BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin.

 

The executives at Bitnet worked formerly at Visa, and many were also previously involved in a company called Cybersource, which was purchased by Visa in 2010 for $2bn to handle its online payment infrastructure. 

 

"What we saw was an opportunity to bring that payments domain expertise from running the world's biggest e-commerce payment gateway [to bitcoin]," McDonnell said.

 

The Bitnet CEO explained that it is fairly simple for small merchants to begin accepting bitcoin. However, big organizations could experience problems integrating cryptocurrency payments given their often complex internal financial systems.

 

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SnapCard Aims to Boost Bitcoin Adoption with POS System Giveway

Bitcoin payments solutions provider snapCard is planning to give 500 merchants in the San Francisco area the ability to accept the digital currency as part of a month-long promotional event.

 

The company announced its '#IntegrateSF' campaign today, which will give away free tablet-based point-of sale (POS) systems to participating merchants who start accepting bitcoin payments this November.

 

The goal of #IntegrateSF, according to snapCard, is to turn the San Francisco Bay area into the world's digital currency hub.

SnapCard's strategy includes offering free transactions on a permanent basis to the 500 merchants that take part in the month-long effort. Merchants will also receive promotional materials and marketing support from the company to get the word out to the public on their bitcoin integration.

 

SnapCard operations manager Jack Jia said in a blog post that the region's longstanding association with digital currency startups makes it an ideal place for the project,

 

The initiative follows snapCard's most recent $1.5m seed round of investment. Venture capitalist Tim Draper, Crypto Currency Partners, Insikt Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital and Boost VC all took part in the funding.

 

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New Bitcoin Exchange Launched as Interest Rises in Digital Currency - Independent Reserve

Independent Reserve, the Bitcoin market, today announced the opening of its new exchange based in Sydney, Australia.

 

CEO Adam Tepper said Independent Reserve would add a valuable source of liquidity to the growing Bitcoin market. In a survey with almost 450 people, Independent Reserve found that while only 8% had used Bitcoin, more than half felt they understood Bitcoin and over 75% definitely or possibly planned to find out more in the near future.

 

"The use and ownership of Bitcoins is growing, and users want a safe, secure place to buy, sell and store them," he said. "Our team has a solid background in finance as well as IT, bringing the rigour of a financial services framework to the new Bitcoin industry.

 

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NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) - When people think about some of the freest economies in the world right now, obvious options, such as Singapore and Switzerland, usually come to mind first. You can get a decent gauge of the freest countries in the world by taking a peek at the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

 

Although there are plenty of economies that can be considered "mostly free," the reality is that the only place that could possibly receive a perfect score at this time is the Bitcoin economy. Let's take a look at how the Bitcoin economy would stack up against the other 178 economies ranked by the Heritage Foundation.

 

This is the section where many would assume the Bitcoin economy has most of its troubles. There are two aspects to the Rule of Law category: property rights and freedom from corruption.

 

It's rather difficult to judge the protection of property rights in the Bitcoin economy due to the fact that there isn't much property that needs to be protected. If someone wanted to take the idea of cryptoanarchy to its fullest extent, they would probably not have their name designated to the ownership of a car or house.

 

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Paydici Partners With BitPay to Offer Recurring Bitcoin Billing

All-in-one billing service provider Paydici announced this morning that they are partnering up with Atlanta, Georgia-based BitPay in effort to bring recurring billing to the bitcoin realm, a move Paydici says "will help ensure that businesses large and small can transact in bitcoin with their clients on a recurring basis without a taxing manual process."

 

Paydici partners up with accounting solutions and financial institutions, offering turnkey billing, invoicing and payment solution for small and medium-size businesses.

(I'd also like to take this time to point out that Portland, Oregon-based Paydici has a dog named Bailey working as a receptionist, which is awesome.)

 

The move will give Paydici an edge over the competition, certainly, but more importantly, will serve as an easier way for clients who accept bitcoin to issue recurring bills to their customers.

 

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