It is becoming widely accepted that digital currency is not only here to stay, but is being embraced by mainstream regulatory officials, financial conglomerates and venture capital investors.
The latest milestone development which further cements the future of virtual currency is yesterday’s funding round attracted by North American Bitcoin technology company Coinbase, not only because of its gargantuan size, but also because of its participants.
In closing a Series C funding round, Coinbase can categorically claim that it has made a historic breakthrough in attracting the highest ever investment for a Bitcoin startup, at $75 million, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and includes a series of traditional financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange.
Seals of approval do not come much louder or clearer than this, as Union Square Ventures, BBVA Ventures, and Ribbit Capital have joined the New York Stock Exchange in this round of funding, which now takes Coinbase’s total funding to $106 million.
Andreessen Horowitz, DoCoMo and USAA, as well as former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer are also involved in investments in the company.
Coinbase, based in San Francisco, offers a number of financial services for individuals and businesses, such as processing transactions for merchants that accept Bitcoin, thus being at the forefront of technological development which many investors and government officials consider to be the means by which digital currency will evolve into becoming a mainstay of the financial ecosystem.