Heifer International was founded in 1944 and initially served populations in need after the second world war. Since then, Heifer has grown to be one of the leading US-based nonprofits, reaching families in need around the world. Heifer empowers donors by giving gifts of livestock and training to help lift farming families out of poverty.

Heifer's vision for bitcoin payments is driven by its goal to engage young, digitally native donors who give and spend online. Heifer International will engage a bitcoin user base that's already shown itself to be serious about making a difference, from its contributions to post-earthquake Nepal to homeless communities in the US..

Since bitcoin is as global as the internet, it will also allow Heifer to reach donors anywhere in the world – even if they don't have access to credit cards and PayPal. Bitcoin also gives Heifer a way to reduce the fees of traditional payment processing – meaning more money can go toward Heifer projects that are helping close the income gap in nearly 30 countries around the world.

We look forward to working with Heifer International and other nonprofits to grow bitcoin's use in charitable giving. Be part of the change with Heifer and buy a gift for a family in need by following the link below.

Donate to Heifer International

To learn more about accepting bitcoin for your nonprofit, visit https://bitpay.com or send us an email.

Coinsecure is India’s leading Bitcoin and blockchain company. They are currently closing their series A round and recently broke India's record for a VC investment by securing $1.2M. Coinsecure offers automated bitcoin trading, a wallet service for holding and transferring bitcoin, and the first and only INR block explorer. They're also the first exchange in India to offer a comprehensive API which allows for simpler, more reliable integrations with other web services.

Bitcoin has already proven to be a popular payment method for consumers in India. In 2015, the country ranked among our top 20 countries for bitcoin transaction activity and contributed to a 388% growth in Asia's BitPay transaction volume. Bitcoin is also gathering attention from the country's banking and governmental leaders, as shown in the Reserve Bank of India's recent call for a regulatory framework for blockchain companies. Coinsecure is in the right place at the right time to take advantage of this growth in this environment.

While merchants in India have previously been able to accept bitcoin payments using BitPay's payment processing, many have not yet had the option to receive settlement payouts in India's national currency, the rupee. Coinsecure's new payments service, built on the BitPay API, will help to change that. Their platform will allow merchants in India to accept bitcoin payments without the price volatility or legal and accounting complications of holding bitcoin.

For India's merchants, bitcoin offers a new way to receive online payments from customers anywhere in the world, including in areas of Asia without widespread credit card access. With an easily-accessible merchant tool in India, more Indian consumers can also turn to bitcoin for a payment method that cuts out the risk of credit card fraud and the costs of other traditional payment methods.

Merchants have already signed up for Coinsecure's services (see today's Coinsecure blog post), and the variety is a testament to bitcoin's versatility. If you're a bitcoin user in India, you can now use digital currency with consulting firm First Principal Ventures, design firm Lazy Eight Design, ecommerce platform Kartmagic, and personalized furniture shop - Zraya.

This is a major advancement for bitcoin in India, and we are excited to work with Coinsecure to make bitcoin payments more accessible to the country's merchants and consumers.

Want to start accepting bitcoin payments with Coinsecure? Get started here.

Vodi is taking advantage of the growth in mobile messaging in some exciting ways. In addition to offering free text messaging and phone and video calls, Vodi allows users to make airtime top-up payments to more than 390 mobile phone service providers in 135 countries. These airtime top-up payments can also be made as gifts to other Vodi users, opening up a convenient way for families and friends in different countries to transfer credit back and forth.

Vodi also offers digital gift cards which can be redeemed at checkout through the app. Their eGift Card selection includes more than 90 offerings from brands in the United States and Mexico (with more countries to come), including Hotels.com, American Airlines, Regal Entertainment Group, and CVS Pharmacy. Headed to the store and want to get a digital gift card to pay? You can get a digital gift card in seconds with a bitcoin payment in the Vodi app. And since Vodi is using BitPay to accept payments, you can use any bitcoin wallet to pay.

Mobile payments are an exciting use case for bitcoin, and gift card and top-up payments have proven to be especially popular with international bitcoin users. We're excited to continue to work with the Vodi team to explore new opportunities for bitcoin in the mobile messaging world.

Want to get started with using Vodi? Download it for iOS or get it on your Android phone. Learn more about accepting bitcoin in your mobile app at https://bitpay.com/mobile.

Founded in 1996, Valve's Steam platform is used by more than 89 million gamers. Steam reaches 237 countries, and its more than 9,000 different games include popular titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Civilization V, XCOM 2, and Fallout 4. Many of the award-winning titles were produced in-house at Valve, including Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, and Portal.

Valve reached out to us because they were looking for a fast, international payment method for Steam users in emerging gaming markets in countries like India, China, and Brazil. While more users are coming online in these countries, traditional payment options like credit cards often aren't available. As the internet's universal currency, Bitcoin will allow Steam to easily reach gamers in every market around the world – without the high fees or the risk of chargeback fraud that come with card payments.

Whether they're hardcore gamers or first-time players, Steam's players deserve a faster, safer payment method. With Steam's bitcoin integration, customers will be able to use any bitcoin wallet to scan, pay, and get back to gaming in seconds without having to provide sensitive financial information.

Bitcoin has a bright future in gaming. We look forward to partnering with more gaming platforms to make bitcoin the most popular payment method for the world's gamers.

Ready to get started? Go buy yourself a game with bitcoin. New to paying with bitcoin? Learn more about how to get started.

Since its launch in 2011, Coinbase has been one of the most reliable services for buying and selling bitcoin. Coinbase allows users to hold bitcoin, sell it, or purchase it with debit cards, bank accounts, or credit cards.

Our new Coinbase integration in Copay makes it easy to buy and sell bitcoin directly from your wallet. And it's available in all US states, Canada, and the 30 other countries supported by Coinbase's buy and sell service, at limits of up to $1,000 per day. To get started, just open the Copay app and follow an easy flow to connect your wallet to an existing Coinbase accounts. If you don't have a Coinbase account yet, it's easy to get one.

If you already use Coinbase but are looking for a secure everyday bitcoin wallet, we hope you'll give Copay a try on your favorite device or desktop platform. If you're already a Copay power user, we hope you'll get the new update, try out the integration, and reach out to us with your feedback and pull requests on our GitHub page.

Virus Details

The Trojan.Coinbitclip virus attacks a computer's clipboard. When the bitcoin user copies and pastes the bitcoin address of his intended recipient, the valid bitcoin address is changed to a bitcoin address controlled by the attacker who introduced the virus. The attacker's bitcoin address (which often looks very similar to the original address) receives the funds.

This virus has not compromised any wallets or payment systems. Instead, it's introduced into Windows computers through malicious software or email attachments.

Security Measures

Symantec assembled a thorough report on other characteristics of the virus and the steps you can take to prevent it. As with cash, bitcoin payments cannot be reversed. That means it's especially important to do regular security checkups on the devices you use to hold and spend bitcoin.

In the meantime, if you have reason to believe that one or more of your devices has been infected (you've sent a bitcoin payment which did not arrive to its intended destination), please take the precaution to review your payment details before sending. With some extra attention to detail, it's possible to spot this attack every time.

Prior to founding Merchant e-Solutions, Jim was the Senior Vice President of product, technology, and marketing at Bank of America Merchant Services, Inc. (BAMS). Today he serves as a partner in Avigo Ltd., a firm that provides funding and guidance to early-stage Brazilian startups. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on payments and the Latin American fintech community, and we couldn’t be more excited to have him on board.

Here's what Jim had to say about joining BitPay and the bitcoin ecosystem:

I have spent virtually my entire 31-year career in financial services and financial technology – the latter 20 years in financial technology. I have been fortunate to see many of the technology shifts that have helped shape our industry, and I feel fortunate to be a part of such a dynamic industry. Interestingly, I started out my career in banking and have seen my career gravitate towards payments and financial technology. The answer to why this happened explains why I am now a part of BitPay.

The financial services industry has been shifting and continues to shift to a technology driven industry – and this shift is accelerating rapidly. Our whole industry – the entire way we find and consume these services – is being less driven by the banks that are available and increasingly driven by the technology available to us.

And this is important. It used to be exclusively the case that the technology served the product and operational needs of the banking community. Interestingly, we have been seeing more and more cases where the banking industry is trying to determine its role in the technology. Electronic payments is perhaps the oldest example. An industry that was completely dominated by banking institutions came to be dominated by technology companies like FDC, Paymentech, TSYS, Global Payments and others. Non-banks offering technology-based services came to dominate the credit and debit card payments landscape. Banks got pushed to the back-end of the process and became financial utilities, plug-ins.

And now there is bitcoin, a truly digital financial instrument, completely based upon technology. For me, it represents where our world of financial technology is going. But we have to shape this future. We have to find and vet bitcoin's relevant applications.

I joined BitPay because I find bitcoin technology compelling. I think it is going to greatly influence the way we transact and the way we use financial services. BitPay is a company that sees that bitcoin has a very relevant place in financial services, but they also see that bitcoin's place has to be defined and nurtured. The company has brought in executive talent at all levels to develop bitcoin as a financial instrument and to find its applications for daily life. For me, BitPay is a wonderful combination of practical execution and strategic exploration. There simply are not many companies that offer this kind of opportunity.

We previously covered PEY early last year when they integrated our payment gateway API into bitcoin payment terminals used by German merchants. Since then, PEY has been working to offer a complete end to end payment solution for bitcoin-accepting merchants and bitcoin users. Offering a payroll solution will be the next step in PEY's plan.

PEY is beginning its payroll rollout with leading German tech publication t3n, which just announced their decision to allow employees to opt in for bitcoin salary payments as well as an additional tax-free benefit of up to 44 euros. After a successful German launch, PEY plans to expand their payroll offering to companies in other European countries.

Bitcoin offers a significant improvement over other methods for business payroll payments and payouts. Since transactions confirm in minutes and can be transmitted more securely than other online payments, businesses can use bitcoin to make both local and international payments faster and more affordably than through bank transfers.

PEY is taking the advantages of bitcoin payroll and adding more value through its unique position in German payments. Since bitcoin is not yet considered legal tender in Germany, employers using PEY will be able to offer bitcoin as a tax-free benefit to their employees. Employees opting to receive bitcoin as this benefit or as a portion of their regular salaries will be also able to use it to shop at local merchants and online businesses using the PEY app to accept payments.

PEY will be one of the latest companies to start using the bitcoin payroll API we launched in 2014, alongisde US-based HR platform Zuman and Canadian gaming marketplace OPSkins, which uses BitPay to issue more than $40,000 in bitcoin payouts daily.

Want to get started with offering bitcoin payroll or payouts in your payment platform? Visit our payroll and payouts page and email info@bitpay.com to talk to a member of our team about bringing bitcoin payouts to your company. If you want to start offering payroll to your employees, check out PEY's new payroll offering at https://pey.de/payroll.

One of the largest dealers in its industry, JM Bullion is also one of the most trusted providers of gold and silver in the United States. The company chose to accept bitcoin to provide greater choice to purchasers checking out online. JM Bullion's integration allows bitcoin customers to pay using any bitcoin wallet and complete their orders in seconds, without leaving the site.

Since bitcoin is a push payment method that works like cash for the Internet, JM Bullion and its customers that use bitcoin can protect themselves from the costs of credit card chargeback fraud. Those costs factor into the several percentage point processing fees charged by traditional payment providers, and they can add up to significant margins for high-value purchases like gold and silver. By sidestepping these fees, JM Bullion's bitcoin customers will be getting the same 4% discount offered to customers paying with bank transfers or paper checks – without the hassle of transacting offline. Bitcoin customers will also have higher payment limits than credit card users, as well as lower payment minimums than bank transfers.

It makes sense that precious metals have been popular purchases for bitcoin users – particularly those in the United States – and have typically seen higher than average order values. We're excited to work with JM Bullion as it reaches this strong market for bitcoin.

We have recently made some enhancements to our Email Billing tool that make it even easier to collect B2B payments. Here’s a short tutorial on how businesses can use bitcoin and BitPay to solve some of the problems of international receivables.

Why Bitcoin Makes Sense for B2B Billing

Whether you're a freelance designer, law firm or international corporation, invoicing clients is a part of the everyday operations of your business. But if your business deals with international clients, receiving payments from other countries can be a pain.

Cross-border B2B payments are typically handled by bank wires, which (in the age of the Internet) are very slow, costly, and unnecessarily complicated. The procedure to figure out how a payor gets their bank to send money to your bank, and correctly to you, is rather cumbersome.

To check the status of a payment, the receiver logs into their bank and sees a transaction “INCOMING WIRE” with an amount that is nearly always less than what was expected. The bank offers little to no explanation regarding the path and fees that occurred along the way.

Because bitcoin payments can be sent directly via the Internet in transactions that take minutes to confirm, they are ideally suited for sending money across long distances faster and more affordably than traditional methods. Plus, payments arrive for the exact amount requested, with full visibility.

A wide variety of businesses have already started to take advantage of billing with bitcoin, including media sites selling advertising, IT services firms, and legal and accounting services groups. As we highlighted in our previous post on bitcoin billing, it helped DDOS mitigator Nexusguard deliver immediate assistance to an international client – something not possible with bank transfers today.

How Bitcoin Billing Works

The BitPay billing tool has been the primary way that our merchants have taken advantage of this feature of bitcoin. It allows businesses to send itemized payment requests via email. For businesses accepting recurring payments, those bills can be configured to send repeatedly on weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly schedules.

To access the Billing tool, visit Payment Tools -> Email Billing in your BitPay account.

When you create and send a bill, your clients will receive an email from BitPay which they can open to view bill details. When they are ready to pay, they can choose to pay via bitcoin from any bitcoin wallet at any time. You can keep track of your outstanding bills in your merchant dashboard, and the transaction details for all bills are recorded in your BitPay dashboard's searchable Payments View feature.

Payments received are settled the next day from BitPay to you, to the bank account or bitcoin wallet you have configured in your BitPay dashboard.

Getting Started

If you would like to offer your clients the ability to pay with bitcoin, it's easy to get started. Let your clients know that they will receive their next bills via email from BitPay, and share our guide to paying a BitPay invoice. If your clients need to purchase bitcoin to pay their bills, they can use any of the popular bitcoin exchanges to trade USD, EUR, or other local currencies for BTC.

If you want to test this feature first, you can follow our guide to creating and using a test.bitpay.com account. And finally, if you have any feedback on this new feature, let us know through the email icon in your BitPay merchant dashboard.

Run A Full Bitcoin Node in the Cloud

We built Bitcore to lower the barrier to entry to Bitcoin development. Whether you want to help build Bitcoin's peer to peer network or build better Bitcoin infrastructure for your company, running a full node is the best way to get started. Running Bitcore on the Azure cloud will make hosting a node even easier by getting rid of the need for local, dedicated machines.

Bitcore provides a comprehensive set of Node.js language libraries for extending Bitcoin's functionality. It also comes with a native set of utilities that allow users to test and develop Bitcoin services without relying on third party APIs for querying the blockchain. Along with Bitcore's full node, this reduces the requirement for trust and removes single points of failure for companies running Bitcoin services.

Bitcoin API Calls – 20x Faster

A Bitcore node's direct access to the blockchain via its native bindings to Bitcoind makes Bitcore-based services 20X faster than those using JSON-RPC. That's a significant performance improvement for services that rely on blockchain data, from payment processors and exchanges to block explorers.

We've already implemented Bitcore as the backend for our own bitcoin wallet Copay. Users can choose to connect directly to private Bitcoin nodes using our Bitcore Wallet Service, which includes a command line client made for business users.

Building Blockchain Services With Bitcore

Bitcore's service architecture also makes it possible to create new types of applications for the Bitcoin blockchain, from issuing digital assets to proving ownership of digital files.

Start building out Bitcoin infrastructure in your own project or company with the easiest way to run a Bitcoin full node. Check out our quickstart page for running a full node and block explorer with Bitcore and use our detailed guides to get up and running fast with other services. If you have any feedback, let us know on our forums.

OPSkins enables players of the popular online game CounterStrike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) to buy and sell the digital "skins" used to decorate CS:GO weapons. In its several months since launching its bitcoin integration, OPSkins has built a case that digital goods and digital currency are a perfect pairing.

Growing a Digital Skins Economy with Bitcoin

The demand for CS:GO skins first emerged from the gaming community on Steam, the online platform where CS:GO is played. The rarest patterns can sell for up to $10,000 U.S. dollars, and more common cases and keys can sell for less than $1 dollar.

OPSkins founders John Brechisci and Artur Minacov launched the company in January 2015 to meet growing demand for a reputable marketplace for CS:GO skin buyers and sellers. More than 5 million items have been bought and sold on the site since OPSkins's launch, with approximately 3,000 new users joining every day. Today the site has over one million users, making it a huge success among the CS:GO community.

OPSkins began accepting bitcoin in August after demand from their users, many of whom were already relying on online payment methods to trade for CS:GO skins with other gamers around the world. Accepting bitcoin payments for its Wallet Funds store credits has allowed OPSkins to expand that international reach while further reducing the risk of chargeback fraud in the skins economy.

Just a few months into accepting bitcoin, the company is already processing 400-500 bitcoin transactions per week. This traction has also shown up in the volume OPSkins has processed, with one notable transaction involving a bitcoin purchase of $25,000.

Launching Bitcoin Payouts for Sellers

OPSkins' decision to implement bitcoin payouts had an unlikely origin. One of our senior sales engineers learned about OPSkins when his son – an avid CounterStrike player – came across the company's "Pay With Bitcoin" option. OPSkins had already seen demand for bitcoin payouts from its marketplace sellers when our team first reached out. It was a simple next step to to begin working with the OPSkins team to launch the first full-scale use of our bitcoin masspay API.

OPSkins has been live with bitcoin payouts since October, and it's had strong traction since the beginning. In addition to offering payouts via PayPal, the company uses our platform to pay out nearly $40,000 in bitcoin to its sellers every day. OPSkins expects these bitcoin payouts to grow in step with the fast pace of the incoming bitcoin transactions it's begun to see in the past months.

OPSkins and its users are leading the way in showing bitcoin's potential for fast, international batch payouts. We're excited to work with them and other online platforms to find more powerful uses for bitcoin payouts and bitcoin payment acceptance alike.