BitPay is a bitcoin

payment service provider A payment service provider (PSP) is a third-party company that assists businesses to accept electronic payments, such as credit cards and debit cards payments. PSPs act as intermediaries between those who make payments, i.e. consumers, and thos ...

headquartered in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It was founded in May 2011 by Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair. BitPay provides Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash payment processing services for merchants.

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, including being WordPress's bitcoin merchant. BitPay announced in January 2013 that they would be relocating their headquarters to

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, from their previous location, Orlando, Florida. The move came following the announcement the company had secured $510,000 in

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

. According to the company's co-founder, the city of

was chosen due to the number of fintech companies located in

. In May 2013, BitPay announced that they had raised $2 million via

Founders Fund Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Formed in 2005, Founders Fund had more than $11 billion in aggregate capital under management as of 2022. The firm invests across all stages and sectors, including aerospace, artificia ...

. 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. In 2014, BitPay expanded its North American presence beyond its headquarters in Atlanta, opening offices in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and St. Petersburg, Florida. BitPay's European headquarters opened in Amsterdam and their South American Headquarters were opened in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. In January at

CES 2014 CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typ ...

, BitPay announced that 12,000 merchants had signed up to their service.

The D Las Vegas The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel (formerly Fitzgeralds) is a 34-story, 639-room hotel and casino in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, owned and operated by Derek and Greg Stevens. The D is located at the eastern end of the Fremont Street Experience. It ...

and

Golden Gate Hotel and Casino The Golden Gate Hotel & Casino is located at One Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. A part of the Fremont Street Experience, it is the oldest and smallest hotel (122 rooms) on the Fremont Street Experience. John F. Miller initial ...

both announced that BitPay would be used as their chosen merchant for Bitcoin in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. They were two of the first casinos in

to accept Bitcoin. Shortly after CES 2014, the NBA basketball team the

Sacramento Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...

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 Within the same month, it was announced that

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

would also begin to accept Bitcoin, with BitPay as its merchant. In 2014, BitPay merchant BitGive became the first bitcoin charity to be recognized as a charitable organization by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

and was granted 501(c)(3) status. The 2014 FEC ruling that bitcoin donations can be accepted by political campaigns and organizations led to BitPay partnering with CoinVox and other fundraising organizations. 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 Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

area took steps so that they could accept the digital currency before the first event. In September 2015, the company sued its insurance provider in regards to non-coverage of a 5000 BTC theft that occurred in December 2014. 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. The company also added new bitcoin-accepting firms including gaming platform Steam. New collaborations and releases with Intel and Microsoft's Azure Cloud platform brought new features and capabilities to BitPay's Copay and Bitcore open source platforms. In 2017, BitPay launched another round B funding campaign. 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. In Dec 2017, Steam stopped accepting bitcoin payments from BitPay, citing transaction costs for small items were too high, along with volatility concerns. Bitcoin's prepaid WaveCrest Visa was discontinued in January 2018. BitPay received its virtual currency license from the New York Department of Financial Services in July 2018.

Funding

Initial funding came from a variety of sources including Shakil Khan, Barry Silbert, Jimmy Furland,

Roger Ver Roger Keith Ver (born 27 January 1979) is an early investor in Bitcoin, Bitcoin-related startups and an early promoter of Bitcoin. Ver has sometimes been referred to as "Bitcoin Jesus". He now primarily promotes Bitcoin Cash as Ver sees it as fu ...

and Trace Mayer. In January 2013, the company announced US $510,000 in

angel investment An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

, its first external capital after being internally bootstrapped. The investment coincided with the company relocating their headquarters to

. It was stated at the time that the funding would be used to help advance Bitcoin processing. In June 2013, BitPay received an additional US $2 million

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

investment led by the Founders Fund. A

Tech Crunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

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 Land grabbing is the contentious issue of large-scale land acquisitions: the buying or leasing of large pieces of land by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals. While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing a ...

for Bitcoin companies. In December 2013,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

business magnate Li Ka-shing invested through his Horizons Ventures firm about $2.7 million into BitPay. In May 2014, BitPay received $30 million in funding from investors including

Index Ventures Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/ AI, and security. Since its ...

RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is an American Venture Capital firm based in New York City. The firm primarily invests in seed, series A and series B rounds and focuses on companies operating in the software, internet, communications, aerospace, robotics, 3D printi ...

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding co ...

's Richard Branson and

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

founder Jerry Yang.

References

External links

Official website
{{Bitcoin Bitcoin companies Companies based in Atlanta Payment service providers Online payments American companies established in 2011 Financial services companies established in 2011

History

Funding

See also

References

External links