VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Silicon valley startup 21 Inc has raised $116 million in venture funding to help broaden the uses of bitcoin technology, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading the digital bitcoin currency, said it has temporarily suspended service after "some" of its "operational wallets were compromised" on Sunday, resulting in loss of about 19,000 bitcoins.

After skyrocketing to more than a thousand dollars in price late last year and attracting global attention, bitcoin, the leading digital currency, has stalled.

Hundreds of alleged usernames and passwords for online document-sharing site Dropbox were published on Monday on Pastebin, an anonymous information-sharing website.

Tech-savvy Venezuelans looking to bypass dysfunctional economic controls are turning to the bitcoin virtual currency to obtain dollars, make Internet purchases -- and launch a little subversion.

A man who helped to promote bitcoin wants to remain in the business despite pleading guilty Thursday to indirectly helping send more than $1 million in the digital currency to users of the illicit online marketplace Silk Road, his lawyer said.

Bitcoin is catching on at U.S. online merchants including Overstock.com and Expedia, as customers use a digital currency that just a few years ago was virtually unknown but is now showing some staying power.

American and Canadian Bitcoin traders and investors have agreed to settle the class-action lawsuits they have filed against the bankrupt Tokyo, Japan-based Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox in return for a 16.5% stake in the firm.

BTC China has halted deposits of local currency from the China Merchants Bank, causing the value of Bitcoin to fall from $500 to below $440, a 10% difference from its value in the past few days.

Tokyo, Japan-based Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox will file for liquidation in Tokyo instead of its initial plan of rebuilding the firm under bankruptcy protection after a bug reportedly brought the site down.

Shanghai, China-based bitcoin exchange BTC China released a new web app called the Picasso ATM to help Bitcoin users exchange the virtual currency even without a physical ATM.

Despite significant increases in its use as a payment system and attention in the marketplace, Bitcoin is small relative to both traditional payment processors and global currencies, according to a Fitch Ratings Why Forum commentary published today.

Bitcoin derivatives trading platform BTC.sx has secured funding from Seedcoin Fund, BTC.sx Chief Operating Officer George Samman told Reuters on Tuesday.

Boston, US-based digital currency firm Circle Internet Financial closed a $17-million Series B round from Oak Investment Partners and other investors to help consumers conduct easier and safer Bitcoin transactions.

Developers have modified the open source Bitcoin software and released a new version to resolve the transaction flaws and to prevent a Mt Gox-like incident from happening again.