In a patent filed on June 19, credit card industry giant MasterCard hinted at a potential future adoption of bitcoin as a payment method. The patent, which outlines a “global shopping cart and a method for its use,” isn’t specific to bitcoin, and only mentions the cryptocurrency a handful of times, but it does clearly […]

Canadian virtual currency exchange Vault of Satoshi (VoS) recently announced several major new services for its rapidly growing customer base. The announcement is the first of two major “Summer Update” announcements, with the second planned in the near future. VoS Director of Marketing Adam Cochran posted the announcements to several popular bitcoin forums, as well […]

Although it has been hailed by many as an disruptive alternative to today’s fee-prone banking and credit card systems, there is a growing realization in the mainstream financial world that bitcoin’s innovations may actually be the solution to some of those industries’ biggest problems. Speaking on CNBC yesterday, BitPay CTO Stephen Pair suggested that the […]

One of the biggest frustrations for bitcoin users is the lack of cryptocurrency-accepting merchants. Even if you have a fortune in bitcoin, actually using it in everyday life ranges from being a huge hassle to completely impossible. Bridging the gap between the existing world of bank and credit-card based currency and bitcoin is the billion-dollar […]

In another sign of the slow, steady global adoption of bitcoin, Brazilian bitcoin exchange BitInvest has launched a pre-paid MasterCard powered by bitcoin deposits. The technology behind Coincard is nothing new, as the exchange simply deposits sold BTC to the debit card rather than a bank account, but it does represent another attempt to bridge […]

Thanks to a new withdrawal system recently announced by BTC-e, one of the biggest roadblocks to mainstream bitcoin adoption may soon be a thing of the past. Starting today, BTC-e customers can withdraw their funds to any country in the world through their Visa or MasterCard. This development has huge implications for the bitcoin community. […]