VENTURE CAPITAL POST

BTC China, the biggest bitcoin exchange in the world, has begun allowing users to buy the digital currency using Chinese yuan again, just a month after it halted renmibi deposits because of a bank warning.

Bitcoin' chances to get recognition as a legal form of money or payment has been slimmed down again when a top foreign currency in Sweden, SEB AB, denied its clients' requests to open accounts in the bank to manage Bitcoins the latter owned.

Charlie Shrem and Robert Faiella, both executives of New York-based Bitcoin exchange business BitInstant, were arrested for money laundering in connection to the illegal drug transactions on an online black market, according to the Manhattan US attorney.

Despite the limitations experienced by the Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, HP security and payments expert Slava Gomzin sees the digital currencies making its way to more brick-and-mortar stores.

Computer and computer-related products retailer TigerDirect has partnered with BitPay to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for online purchases, a Tom's Hardware report said.

A Japanese restaurant in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh is already accepting the digital currency Bitcoin to pay for Omakase or "chef's tasting menu," a report on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said.

Herman Gref, the Chief Executive of state-run Russian bank OAO Sberbank, has called on the Kremlin to prevent restrictions to the Bitcoin as lawmakers consider curbs, Bloomberg reported.

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and JPMorgan Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon cautioned on the dangers of using the Bitcoin and predicted that regulation would most likely end it, the Financial Times reported.

After recently closing a $7.5-million funding round, US-based Bitcoin focused investment fund CoinSeed acquired BitFury's specialized Bitcoin mining hardware for $5 million to build one of the biggest cryptocurrency mining infrastructures in the world.

India-based IT training school Koenig Solutions has offered a four-day program to teach students everything there is to know about the digital currency Bitcoin, ZDNet reported.

Using Bitcoin as a form of reward to programmers working in open-source software projects is rapidly gaining popularity, a report in The Wall Street Journal Blog Venture Capital Dispatch said.

The D and the Golden Gate casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada will be accepting Bitcoins to pay for goods and services beginning on Wednesday, January 22, RT reported.

Investors see in Bitcoin the potential to provide a payment technology that could undermine the dominance of Visa Inc, Western Union or Citigroup Inc in the industry, Bloomberg reported.

The UK website of e-commerce giant eBay will soon allow the sale of Bitcoins and other digital currencies under the Virtual Currency category, CNET reported.

South Korea-based Bitcoin startup Korbit raised $400,000 in funding from several Silicon Valley investors including Tim Draper, Naval Ravikant, David Lee, and Barry Silbert, for the company's growth.