No CommentsIt’s no big news that Bitcoin is attracting a lot of investors. Recently, we learned that Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures is going to help fund a $5 million round of investment for Coinbase.
In a similar way, the investment firm Draper Associates invested half a million dollars in the Bitcoin startup CoinLab. And, then, famous names like the Winklevoss twins, connected to the foundation of Facebook, also allegedly spent $11 million buying Bitcoins.
But do you know what’s so attractive about this cryptocurrency? Its potential for individual investors is great, as it provides untraceable and tax free transactions, without any kind of governmental control.
But it’s not only the individuals who are collecting the products of this new world, businesses are also starting to see the advantages of Bitcoin’s flexibility. About 3oo merchants have signed on to Coinbase to accept Bitcoin. Even PayPal is going to surrender to the digital currency, since the president of its Ebay division, David Marcus, said that the company is “kind of thinking about” integrating Bitcoin with the company’s money transfer platform.
Still, Bitcoin continues to have its risks, since the currency’s value is extremely volatile. Besides, businesses have suffered numerous attacks and, since the market isn’t regulated by any authorities, if somebody steals your Bitcoins, there’s no way to get them back. And, then, there’s also the possible burst of the Bitcoin bubble everybody’s talking about.
However, these risks and warnings can’t kill ideas and projects. Jaron Lukasiewicz is an example: after launching a website that failed, the 27-year-old built Bitcoin trading platform Coinsetter, which should be available this year. “A lot of it is in response to the fact government never really fixed their problems after the financial collapse, Bitcoin is a natural answer. People are starting to value private currency”, says Jaron Lukasiewicz.
Like this young entrepreneur, the 23-year-old Charlie Shrem created the payment-processor startup BitInstanst, which is making a lot of success. “There is so much potential”, he claims, “I am just waiting for it to be a billion dollar industry”.
Via businessinsider.com
