25 Mar 2014 / CNet – Bitcoin’s been very much in the news of late for all the wrong reasons.
In February the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox declared bankruptcy after some $400 million in bitcoins got stolen. Bitcoin bank Flexcoin shut down earlier this month after robbers made off with $600,000 in stolen bitcoins, while a smaller exchange called Poloniex lost more than 12 percent of its assets after a hack. Adding to the general uncertainty, another exchange, Blockchain, suffered an hours-long outage.
But for Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, this is part of an all-too familiar narrative, one in which a new disruptive technology arrives on the scene — Internet, anybody? — attracting any number of entrepreneurs, some who fail, others who succeed. If he’s right and Coinbase passes through a temporary squall, the company, which Ersham co-founded in 2012 with Brian Armstrong, would seem to be in a strong position.
Some big-name tech financiers apparently agree. Late last year, Andreessen Horowitz led a $25 million Series B investment in Coinbase, the biggest chunk of change ponied up by a venture capital company in a Bitcoin-related startup. (Bitcoin’s earlier backers included Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital.) Coinbase, which provides users with a digital wallet, now has about 27,000 businesses that accept Bitcoin for customer payment. If you do the exponential math, they will reach 270,000 in about a year and a half….. Read more
http://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-nabob-yes-theres-life-after-mt-gox/
