Digital Currency

The price of Bitcoin may have gotten hot in recent months, but investor interest in Bitcoin and blockchain startups could be cooling off. The population of unique investors pouring money into companies dealing in the cryptocurrency and its underlying infrastructure fell 27% last year to 217, according to the latest …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Bitcoin may be commanding higher prices these days, but the flow of investment cash pouring into Bitcoin and blockchain startups is slowing down. Global funding totaled $550 million last year, up just 5% from 2015, while the number of deals slipped from 161 to 132, according …

The price of Bitcoin, which soared to heady heights at the end of 2016 only to drop somewhat over the last two weeks, has been much on the minds of payments observers looking to the digital currency as an intriguing new way to pay. But is Bitcoin a medium of …

It’s still far from a mainstream currency, but Bitcoin is closing out a tumultuous year with a raging run-up in value. The digital currency breached the $800 level on Tuesday, and as of Wednesday afternoon was trading just shy of $822. These are heights Bitcoin hasn’t seen in nearly three …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Buoyed by seismic political and financial events, the Bitcoin digital currency is picking up momentum in both its value and its adoption. Blockchain, a U.K. company that offers Bitcoin services, last week celebrated having issued 10 million wallets since its founding in 2011. That’s a doubling in …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Bitcoin is on a tear again. The cryptocurrency has breached the $700 price barrier seven times out of the last nine days, according to data from Blockchain.info, and bids fair to remain above that level Tuesday. It was trading at $709 early in the day, according to …

• Visa Inc. announced five key person-to-person payment integrations for its Visa Direct faster-payments system, which requires Visa issuers to make funds available to cardholders within 30 minutes. These include: Jack Henry & Associates for JHA Payment Solutions, Fidelity National Information Services for its People Pay service, Stripe Inc. for …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Its many critics have labeled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the regulatory agency run amok, but the CFPB declined to regulate virtual currencies in its newly released rule governing prepaid card accounts even though banks and consumer groups urged it to do so. The CFPB issued …

• Ripple, a provider of distributed-ledger technology for financial transactions, has completed a $55 million Series B funding round. • In related news, Tipalti, which provides a platform to automate supplier payments, announced a $14 million funding round. • Time Inc. said it has integrated Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay to allow mobile …

• Noble House Hotels & Resorts, which earlier said it had been notified by the U.S. Secret Service about a possible card-data breach at its Ocean Key Resort & Spa, said it has found through an investigation that card data may have been compromised at 11 other hotels, restaurants, and …