Whenever we talk about Bitcoin, a company that is always a part of that conversation is BitPay. Founded in May 2011 by two engineers, Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair, BitPay is a payment service provider for Bitcoin. BitPay provides merchants the ease to use Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Initially, BitPay was founded as a mobile checkout service for the companies that wanted to accept Bitcoins as a form of payment. In October 2012, BitPay saw steady growth in their user base with over 1,100 active merchants using the app, including WordPress.
For a company that was founded when Bitcoin was still a new concept in the market, BitPay did well with the services they offered, and after two years of being in the market, they made some major announcements.
Major Milestones
In January 2013, BitPay decided to move their headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia because of the number of fintech companies located in Georgia. They also managed to secure $510,000 in seed funding for their business. In May 2013, the company had raised $2 Million via Founders Fund.
In September 2013, the company announced it reached the merchant count of 10,000, and they stated that since the foundation, the company had processed over $34M, which totaled to the equivalent of 270,830 Bitcoins at that time.
Funding
The company started slow, and 7 different investors provided the initial funding, including Barry Silbert, Ashton Kutcher, and others. This investment raised a seed fund of $700,000 for the company.
In December 2013, Li Ka-Shing, a Hong-Kong based business magnate invested $2.7 Million in BitPay through his Horizons Ventures firm.
In May 2014, BitPay hit the jackpot when Index Ventures, RRE Ventures, Virgin Group’s Richard Branson and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang invested in Bitpay. This totaled the funding to reach $30 Million.
What is BitPay?
BitPay was introduced at first as an app that would help businesses use Bitcoin as a form of payment. But with time and as they gained popularity, they became the first choice of every merchant when it comes to Bitcoin usage. Currently, they are the largest bitcoin payment processing app in the world and serve all the industry-leading merchants across 6 continents daily.
Their secure and easy to understand and use interface is used by thousands of bitcoin users every day. It offers the businesses to accept Bitcoin with BitPay. Along with this, they provide the facility for direct bank deposits in the currency that the user wishes to choose with a flat 1% settlement charge.
BitPay offers you to maintain your profiles depending on whether you represent yourself or your firm or business. You have the option to register yourself as either a business or get a Bitpay card or wallet for your personal use.
BitPay for Business
BitPay was launched to help merchants to do their business efficiently. They solved the problem of merchant payments by introducing payment in the form of Bitcoins, and BitPay helped to store those payments and to process them.
BitPay app is available across 6 different continents, making it easier for the businesses to register themselves on the app and make the best use of it. With their secure transactions and no chargebacks, the possibility of ID theft and frauds is almost nil.
With just a 1% chargeable fee, it makes it one of the cheapest and fastest way for the merchants to keep their businesses up and running. Global reach gives them a chance to expand their markets.
With BitPay, you can accept the Bitcoin as a mode of payment anywhere, anytime. From accepting payments and donations from your online customers on your website to getting invoices through vendors on your email to accepting Bitcoin on your smartphone or tablet at a retail store or restaurant, it can be quickly done using BitPay.
With BitPay, you can join the global blockchain system of cryptocurrencies and take control of your money. The funds get directly transferred to the banks where they can be settled in whatever currency you choose.
BitPay for personal use
BitPay has also focused on providing a great user experience to the people who wish to use Bitpay for their personal use as well. A user can register themselves on the website and manage and spend their Bitcoin with the BitPay wallet and apply for a BitPay prepaid Visa card to turn their Bitcoin into dollars.
User can create multiple wallets to store their funds, and these funds will be protected by multi-sig and key encryption to provide a secure experience to the user. BitPay believes in complete transparency, and their wallet technology is open source, helping them to upgrade and improve now and then.
For every payment or transfer you make, an email and push notification will be sent to you to notify about it and to help you keep track of the activities. You can also purchase gift cards and pay your friends around the world. Turning the crypto into dollars has been made easier now.
In case a store does not accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment, BitPay allows you to purchase store credits in exchange for crypto and spend them wherever you like. The BitPay Visa card can be used to shop with Visa merchants across the globe.
Since its launch, BitPay has seen steady growth in its user base, and they plan to continue and improve their services for a better future for both the users as well as the company.
Future of Bitcoin looks very bright, and BitPay plans to remain at the forefront of this technology, creating more tools and services for the public to use in innovative ways.
To know more about BitPay, visit them on their website.
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