Welcome to the latest edition of the NewsBTC Weekly Bitcoin Recap, where we highlight our top stories of the week. Let’s take a look at the biggest headlines for the week of January 25 – 31, 2015.
1. Bitcoin Price Rockets Past $300 on Coinbase News; $375-380 Bitcoin High Next? – as reported on January 26th.
Bitcoin exchange and wallet Coinbase is experiencing constant growth. After they received $75 million in Investments little less than a week ago, they launched their service and they’ve now opened the first U.S. Based Bitcoin Exchange available in 25 states. The price climbed above $300 and stayed there for several hours, but has since fallen.
2. Cameron Winklevoss: Bitcoin Market Cap Could Reach $1 Trillion! – as reported on January 27th.
We reported last week that the twins are preparing to launch a regulated bitcoin exchange in line with their publicly traded ETF (scheduled to trade under the ticker COIN once launched), and in their recent interview with CNN, the brothers offer insight into what they believe bitcoin can be as it becomes more mainstream. Namely, that bitcoin’s market capitalization could rise to at least $400 billion over the next five years.
Tyler Winklevoss stated,
“If Bitcoin is a better gold or seen as a type of gold-like asset, then it could be in the trillions on a market cap…We do feel those are very real possibilities.”
3. Japanese Bitcoin Exchange BitFlyer Draws a Further $1.1M Led By Silbert; Total Investment now $2.93M! – as reported on January 28th.
BitFlyer has successfully secured $1.6 million from domestic venture capitalists to fund the launching of a new Japan-based bitcoin exchange. The goal is to fill the void left by the collapse of Mt Gox.
This third round of funding drew just over 130 million Japanese yen – approximately $1.1 million US dollars at current rates. Led by Barry Silbert, the majority of investment came from Japanese investors – primarily Recruit Strategic Partners, a subsidiary of Japan-based company Recruit, and GMO Venture Partners, the VC arm of GMO Internet Group.
4. Coinbase Community Opens to Coinbase’s 2 Million Wallet Customers – as reported on January 30th.
Coinbase introduces Coinbase Community, a discussion platform for their many users.
The company is using Discourse.org’s forum software to offer popular features such as nested conversations, mobile support, and up-voting. Coinbase has even integrated its tip button into the platform as well so community members can tip each other for good advice. Everyone that has a Coinbase account is automatically signed up for a Coinbase Community account, so if you have any questions about Coinbase, or bitcoin in general, it seems that there is a new water cooler in town for discussion.
That does it for this week’s NewsBTC Weekly Bitcoin Recap. Be sure to signup for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest Bitcoin news. To the moon!
Image from Flickr.
