ATLANTA — September 16, 2013 — BitPay Inc, the world leader in business solutions for virtual currencies, announces it has over 10,000 approved merchants in 164 countries using its service to accept bitcoin payments. This milestone was reached almost exactly one year after the company approved its 1,000th merchant.
The merchants in BitPay's directory are diverse internationally, with approximately 50% located in North America, 25% in Europe, and 25% in the rest of the world. Ecommerce merchants account for over 90% of the business, including consumer electronics, precious metals and IT services. Bitcoin lowers the risk and cost of accepting payments in a card not-present situation, such as eCommerce.
BitPay's merchant service continues to expand its feature set at a rapid pace. Merchants using the popular Quickbooks small business accounting software can now download and import their BitPay sales into Quickbooks.
"Our merchants are thrilled with this ability to import into Quickbooks," says BitPay CFO Bryan Krohn. "œIt makes reporting their bitcoin sales just as frictionless as the payment itself."
The month of August was another record month for BitPay, processing over 10,000 merchant transactions worth over $6.4 million. Year-to-date in 2013, over $34 million worth of bitcoins have been spent on goods and services through merchants using BitPay's platform.
BitPay's story is unique in the startup space. Founded by two graduates of Georgia Tech, the company built a working product, acquired customers, and achieved profitability with only the two founders.
After raising their round of seed capital, BitPay has chosen to establish their roots in Atlanta and build their company culture in a city known for innovation, but often overlooked by the Silicon Valley insiders.
"Atlanta is a hub for financial technology, especially in the payment and merchant acquiring space,: states BitPay CEO Anthony Gallippi. "There's a cluster of amazing companies here, focused on delivering real results through innovation."
With pre-built plugins or embedded solutions for 20 of the most popular shopping cart platforms, adding bitcoin as a payment option to a merchant's webstore can be done in a few minutes, without writing any code.
