Andre Yoskowitz
28 Dec 2013 18:30
Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Asia, is now an investor in BitPay, the startup aiming to become the largest payment service provider for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
The investment was made through Li's venture capital company, Horizons Ventures, a company which had major successes as early investors in Facebook, Waze and Skype. Li is worth about $30 billion.
So far, the startup has raised an estimated $2.7 million.
Bitcoin, the leading virtual currency (of the moment) has come under fire recently after regulators in China and India issued warnings against using the currency and China's leading Bitcoin exchanges even outright banned deposits in Yuan. Bitcoin's value has skyrocketed from $14 per coin last December to settle at about $750 per coin as of today. The currency did see a crash just last month, diving to $450 from a high of $1242.
BitPay has processed over $100 million in transactions for 2013, with its merchant base now exceeding 15,500.