Coinbase Raises $25 Million from Andreessen Horowitz in Largest Bitcoin Investment To-Date

As I tweeted at the time, I think Bitcoin began phase two of its growth and adoption cycle upon the conclusion of the Senate hearings last month (I suggest reading: My Thoughts on the Bitcoin Hearing).

I think phase two will be primarily characterized by two things. More mainstream adoption and ease of use, as well as increasingly large investments by venture capitalists. In the past 24 hours, we have seen evidence of both.

First, yesterday we heard that Fidelity will allow its clients to invest in Bitcoin through SecondMarket’s fund in their IRAs. Today, we learn of the biggest investment in Bitcoin to-date. A $25 million infusion into San Francisco based Coinbase by several VC firms, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coinbase also announced that it has added core Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen as an advisor. Coinbase now has 600,000 user wallets and is adding an incredible 10,000 new customers per day.

Coinbase reports that:

On August 1st, Coinbase reached a milestone of 200,000 users. That was quickly followed in mid-October by the news that we had reached 300,000 users. Today, there are more than 600,000 consumer Bitcoin wallets on Coinbase, signaling that we are nearing a tipping point for broad adoption of Bitcoin – what we at Coinbase believe to be one of the most important shifts in the global economy in our lifetime.

In order to keep up with the growing consumer and merchant demand for Bitcoin, we must scale. And in order to do that, we are pleased to announce that today we have secured a series B funding round totaling $25M, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital. With this funding, Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon will join our board, along with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.

Separately, we’re also very pleased to share that Gavin Andresen has joined Coinbase as an advisor. For those of you who don’t know him, Gavin is the head developer of Bitcoin as an open source software project. 

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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