BitPay

BitPay
Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, USA, United States, Argentina, Netherlands
No. of locations 6
Area served Worldwide
Chairman Tony Gallippi
CEO Stephen Pair
Industry Payment Processor
Employees 80+[1]
Website Official website
Launched May 2011 (2011-05)

BitPay is a global bitcoin payment service provider headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.[2] It was founded in May 2011 by Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair. BitPay provides Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash payment processing services for merchants.[3]

History

BitPay was first 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[4] including being WordPress's bitcoin merchant.[5]

BitPay announced in January 2013 that they would be relocating their headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia from their previous location, Orlando, Florida. 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.[6]

In May 2013, BitPay announced that they had raised $2 million via Founders Fund.[7]

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 the equivalent to 270,830 bitcoins at the time on the Bitcoin Price Index.[8]

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.[9][10] BitPay's European headquarters opened in Amsterdam and their South American Headquarters were opened in Argentina.[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][22]

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.[23] At Money2020 in October 2016, company CEO Stephen Pair introduced the BitPay app, a secure bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet built on the company's open source Copay wallet platform.[24]

The company also added new bitcoin-accepting firms including gaming platform Steam,[25] nonprofit Heifer International,[26] and precious metals provider JM Bullion.[27] New collaborations and releases with Intel[28] and Microsoft's Azure Cloud platform[29] brought new features and capabilities to BitPay's Copay and Bitcore open source platforms.

Funding

Initial funding came from a variety of sources including Shakil Khan, Barry Silbert, Jimmy Furland, Roger Ver[7] and Trace Mayer.[30]

In January 2013 the company announced US $510,000 in angel investment, its first external capital after being internally bootstrapped.[31] 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.[32]

In June 2013, BitPay received an additional US $2 million venture capital investment led by the Founders Fund.[7] 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.[7]

In December 2013, Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing invested through his Horizons Ventures firm about $2.7 million into BitPay.[33]

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.[34][35]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mayer, Trace. "Bitpay Founder Tony Gallippi discusses merchant adoption of Bitcoin". Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "BitPay CrunchBase Profile". Crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  3. ↑ "BitPay Now Top-Funded Bitcoin Startup After Raising $30 Million".
  4. ↑ Peck, Morgen (Oct 8, 2012). "3 Years in, Bitcoin Digital Money Gains Momentum". Scientific American.
  5. ↑ Farivar, Cyrus (2012-11-16). "WordPress now accepting payment in Bitcoin". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  6. ↑ "Bitcoin payments processor, BitPay relos HQ to Atlanta and plans software center". Biz Journals. Jan 7, 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Ingrid Lunden (2013-05-16). "With PayPal-Like Ambitions For Bitcoin, BitPay Raises $2M Led By Founders Fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  8. ↑ Spaven, Emily. "BitPay now has over 10,000 merchants in its payment processor network". CoinDesk.
  9. ↑ "(Press Release) BitPay Opens San Francisco and New York Offices". Yahoo Finance. March 19, 2014.
  10. ↑ Wilkerson, Chris (August 22, 2014). "BitPay looking to inspire startups in St. Pete". Tampa Bay Business Journal.
  11. ↑ "(Press Release) BitPay Opens Latin America Headquarters in Argentina". Reuters. March 5, 2014.
  12. ↑ "(Press Release) BitPay Opens European Headquarters in Amsterdam". Yahoo Finance. April 2, 2014.
  13. ↑ Popelka, Larry (13 January 2014). "Ten Innovations From CES You Should Know About". Business Week.
  14. ↑ Trejos, Nancy. "Las Vegas casinos adopt new form of currency: Bitcoins". USA Today.
  15. ↑ "Sacramento Kings to accept Bitcoin for purchases". USA Today. January 16, 2014.
  16. ↑ Ingrid Lunden. "Zynga Links Up With BitPay For A Bitcoin Payment Test In FarmVille 2, CityVille And Other Web Games". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  17. ↑ Anderson, Mark (August 26, 2014). "Sacramento charity may be nation's first bitcoin-based nonprofit". Sacramento Business Journal.
  18. ↑ Biggs, John (June 12, 2014). "CoinVox Brings Bitcoin Donations To Politicians". TechCrunch.
  19. ↑ Ploshay, Elizabeth (July 24, 2014). "Bitcoin for Campaign Donations". BitPay Official Blog. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Digital currency and bowl backer Bitcoin seeks to broaden its appeal as a form of payment". Tampa Bay Times. August 22, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Atlanta's Bitpay got hacked for $1.8 million in bitcoin - Atlanta Business Chronicle". Atlanta Business Chronicle. 16 September 2015.
  22. ↑ "BitPay Sues Insurer After Losing $1.8 Million in Phishing Attack". CoinDesk.
  23. ↑ http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitpay-extends-exchange-services-with-visa-debit-card/
  24. ↑ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitpay-launches-bitcoin-payments-app-among-array-of-new-features-1477496150
  25. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/28/11525482/bitcoin-steam-valve-bitpay
  26. ↑ https://www.heifer.org/about-heifer/press/press-releases/2016/heifer-international-announces-bitcoin-donation-method.html
  27. ↑ http://www.coindesk.com/precious-metals-jm-bullion-accept-bitcoin/
  28. ↑ https://venturebeat.com/2016/10/24/bitpay-beefs-up-bitcoin-wallet-security-with-intel-chip-integration/
  29. ↑ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-blockchain-as-a-service-update-3/
  30. ↑ Jahosky, Jan. "BitPay Expands Seed Round with VC Investors". www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130304006653/en/BitPay-Expands-Seed-VC-Investors. Business Wire. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
  31. ↑ 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.
  32. ↑ Dotson, Kyt (9 January 2013). "BitPay Receives $510,000 in Funding Round to Advance Bitcoin Processing". Silicon Angle.
  33. ↑ "Asia's Richest Man Invests In BitPay". Tech Crunch.
  34. ↑ BitPay Scores Record $30M in Funding, Aided by Richard Branson Betabeat.com 5/15/2014 by Molly Mushine
  35. ↑ Casey, Michael (May 13, 2014). "Bitcoin Processor Raises $30 Million". Wall Street Journal.
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