BitPay

BitPay is a bitcoin payment service provider headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.[1] It was founded in May 2011 by Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair. BitPay provides Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash payment processing services for merchants.[2]

BitPay
HeadquartersAtlanta, Georgia, USA,
United States, Argentina, Netherlands
No. of locations3
Area servedWorldwide
CEOStephen Pair
IndustryPayment Processor
Employees80+
URLOfficial website
LaunchedMay 2011 (2011-05)

History

BitPay was founded in 2011 to provide mobile checkout services to companies that wanted to accept bitcoins. By October 2012, BitPay had grown to having 1,100 active merchants,[3] including being WordPress's bitcoin merchant.[4]

BitPay announced in January 2013 that they would be relocating their headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia, from their previous location, Orlando, Florida.[1] The move came following the announcement the company had secured $510,000 in seed funding. According to the company's co-founder, the city of Atlanta was chosen due to the number of fintech companies located in Georgia.[5]

In May 2013, BitPay announced that they had raised $2 million via Founders Fund.[6]

In September 2013, the company announced it had reached the milestone of 10,000 merchants. Gallippi stated that since the foundation of the company, they had processed over $34m, which was equivalent to 270,830 bitcoins at the time on the Bitcoin Price Index.[7]

In 2014, BitPay expanded its North American presence beyond its headquarters in Atlanta, opening offices in New York City, San Francisco and St. Petersburg, Florida.[8][9] BitPay's European headquarters opened in Amsterdam and their South American Headquarters were opened in Argentina.[10][11][12]

In January at CES 2014, BitPay announced that 12,000 merchants had signed up to their service.[13] The D Las Vegas and Golden Gate Hotel and Casino both announced that BitPay would be used as their chosen merchant for Bitcoin in Las Vegas. They were two of the first casinos in Las Vegas to accept Bitcoin.[14]

Shortly after CES 2014, the NBA basketball team the Sacramento Kings announced they would become the first major sports franchise in North America to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for tickets and merchandise and would be processed by BitPay[15]

Within the same month, it was announced that Zynga would also begin to accept Bitcoin, with BitPay as its merchant.[16]

In 2014, BitPay merchant BitGive became the first bitcoin charity to be recognized as a charitable organization by the IRS and was granted 501(c)(3) status.[17] The 2014 FEC ruling that bitcoin donations can be accepted by political campaigns and organizations led to BitPay partnering with CoinVox[18] and other fundraising organizations.[19] In June, BitPay became the first Bitcoin company to sponsor a North American sports event. They sponsored the St. Petersburg Bowl, a college bowl game. Following the announcement, over 100 companies in the St. Petersburg area took steps so that they could accept the digital currency before the first event.[20]

In September 2015, the company sued its insurance provider in regards to non-coverage of a 5000 BTC theft that occurred in December 2014.[21]

In May 2016, BitPay launched the BitPay Visa Prepaid Debit Card, the first prepaid Visa debit card available for bitcoin users in all 50 US states.[22] The company also added new bitcoin-accepting firms, including gaming platform Steam.[23] New collaborations and releases with Intel[24] and Microsoft's Azure Cloud platform[25] brought new features and capabilities to BitPay's Copay and Bitcore open source platforms.

In 2017, BitPay launched another round B funding campaign.[26] Later that year, they raised the minimum payment on the platform to US $100 from its previous US $5; the change was reversed only a few days later.[27] In Dec 2017, Steam stopped accepting bitcoin payments from BitPay, citing transaction costs for small items were too high, along with volatility concerns.[28]

Bitcoin's prepaid WaveCrest Visa was discontinued in January 2018.[29][30] BitPay received its virtual currency license from the New York Department of Financial Services in July 2018.[31]

Funding

Initial funding came from a variety of sources including Shakil Khan, Barry Silbert, Jimmy Furland, Roger Ver[6] and Trace Mayer.[32]

In January 2013, the company announced US $510,000 in angel investment, its first external capital after being internally bootstrapped.[33] The investment coincided with the company relocating their headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia. It was stated at the time that the funding would be used to help advance Bitcoin processing.[34]

In June 2013, BitPay received an additional US $2 million venture capital investment led by the Founders Fund.[6] A Tech Crunch article stated that the investment would likely be spent on staffing, with a number of coding specialists required around that time. The funding was seen as an attempted push to become more global and was seen by some as a larger VC land grab for Bitcoin companies.[6]

In December 2013, Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing invested through his Horizons Ventures firm about $2.7 million into BitPay.[35]

In May 2014, BitPay received $30 million in funding from investors including Index Ventures, RRE Ventures, Virgin Group's Richard Branson and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang.[36][37][38]

See also

References
  1. "Orlando-based BitPay to relo HQ and software center to Buckhead". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  2. Seth Fiegerman (13 Mar 2014). "BitPay Now Top-Funded Bitcoin Startup After Raising $30 Million". Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  3. Peck, Morgen (Oct 8, 2012). "3 Years in, Bitcoin Digital Money Gains Momentum". Scientific American.
  4. Farivar, Cyrus (2012-11-16). "WordPress now accepting payment in Bitcoin". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  5. Tony Gallispi (Jan 7, 2013). "Bitcoin payments processor, BitPay relos HQ to Atlanta and plans software center". Biz Journals. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  6. Ingrid Lunden (2013-05-16). "With PayPal-Like Ambitions For Bitcoin, BitPay Raises $2M Led By Founders Fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  7. Natasha Lomas (16 Sep 2016). "BitPay Passes 10,000 Bitcoin-Accepting Merchants On Its Payment Processing Network". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  8. "(Press Release) BitPay Opens San Francisco and New York Offices". Yahoo Finance. March 19, 2014. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014.
  9. Wilkerson, Chris (August 22, 2014). "BitPay looking to inspire startups in St. Pete". Tampa Bay Business Journal. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  10. "(Press Release) BitPay Opens Latin America Headquarters in Argentina". Reuters. March 5, 2014. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24.
  11. "(Press Release) BitPay Opens European Headquarters in Amsterdam". Yahoo Finance. April 2, 2014. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014.
  12. Peter Prestipino (25 Mar 2014). "BitPay Hits the Coasts". Website Magazine.
  13. Popelka, Larry (13 January 2014). "Ten Innovations From CES You Should Know About". Business Week. Archived from the original on January 14, 2014. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  14. Trejos, Nancy (21 Jan 2014). "Las Vegas casinos adopt new form of currency: Bitcoins". USA Today. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  15. "Sacramento Kings to accept Bitcoin for purchases". USA Today. January 16, 2014. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  16. Ingrid Lunden (4 Jan 2014). "Zynga Links Up With BitPay For A Bitcoin Payment Test In FarmVille 2, CityVille And Other Web Games". TechCrunch. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  17. Anderson, Mark (August 26, 2014). "Sacramento charity may be nation's first bitcoin-based nonprofit". Sacramento Business Journal. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  18. Biggs, John (June 12, 2014). "CoinVox Brings Bitcoin Donations To Politicians". TechCrunch. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  19. Ploshay, Elizabeth (July 24, 2014). "Bitcoin for Campaign Donations". BitPay Official Blog. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  20. Susan Thurston (August 22, 2014). "Digital currency and bowl backer Bitcoin seeks to broaden its appeal as a form of payment". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  21. David Allison (16 September 2015). "Atlanta's Bitpay got hacked for $1.8 million in bitcoin - Atlanta Business Chronicle". Atlanta Business Chronicle. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  22. "BitPay rolls out prepaid bitcoin Visa debit card in 131 countries". EconoTimes. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  23. James Vincent (28 Apr 2016). "You can now buy games on Steam using Bitcoin". The Verge. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  24. Dylan Tweney (24 Oct 2016). "BitPay beefs up Bitcoin wallet security with Intel chip integration". Venture Beat. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  25. Marley Gray (4 Jan 2016). "Azure Blockchain as a Service Update #3". Microsoft Azure. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  26. Eric Mandel (16 Dec 2017). "Atlanta bitcoin platform raising another $30 million". Atlanta Business Chronicle. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  27. Reshef Mashraky (25 Dec 2017). "BitPay Cancels New $100 Minimum Payments After 2 Days". Finance Magnates. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  28. Becky Peterson (29 Dec 2017). "The cost of bitcoin payments is skyrocketing because the network is totally overloaded". Business Insider. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  29. Annie Nova (5 Jan 2018). "Some cryptocurrency-backed debit cards dropped from Visa network, leaving users scrambling". CNBC. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  30. Jordan Pearson (5 Jan 2018). "Using Bitcoin as Money Just Got a Lot Harder In Europe". Motherboard. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  31. Dan Clark (16 Jul 2018). "NY Financial Services Dept. Grants Virtual Currency License to Blockchain Payment Processor". New York Law Journal. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  32. Jahosky, Jan (4 March 2013). "BitPay Expands Seed Round with VC Investors". Business Wire. Business Wire. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
  33. Drew Olanoff (2013-01-07). "BitPay Banks $510K In Investment To Become PayPal for Bitcoin, Already Has 2,100 Businesses On Board". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  34. Dotson, Kyt (9 January 2013). "BitPay Receives $510,000 in Funding Round to Advance Bitcoin Processing". Silicon Angle. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  35. Pankaj Mishra (27 Dec 2013). "Asia's Richest Man Invests In BitPay". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 21 Oct 2018.
  36. Molly Mushine (15 May 2014). "BitPay Scores Record $30M in Funding, Aided by Richard Branson". Observer Business. Archived from the original on 2014-05-17.
  37. Casey, Michael (May 13, 2014). "Bitcoin Processor Raises $30 Million". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2017-01-11.
  38. Kim-Mai Cutler (8 May 2014). "BitPay Is Raising $30M At A $160M Valuation From Index, Richard Branson". TechCrunch. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
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