Daily Archives: November 19, 2014

Venture capitalist Tim Draper, the sole winner in a June auction of about 30,000 bitcoins, said he plans to bid again when the U.S. government sells an even bigger cache of the virtual currency next month.

I am a big believer in bitcoin, and I believe it to be one of the most important technologies that have come along in our lifetime, Draper said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. The price is even better than the last auction.

The U.S. Marshals Service said yesterday it plans to sell 50,000 bitcoins in a Dec. 4 auction, as it gradually gets rid of the bitcoins seized after the illicit Silk Road marketplace was shut down last year and its operator, Ross William Ulbricht, was arrested.

Draper, co-founder of investment firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, paid an undisclosed sum in the last auction, which attracted 45 bidders. The 30,000 bitcoins were worth about $19 million based on exchange prices at the time.

Since then, the value of bitcoins has declined about 42 percent to $373.64 apiece today, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which represents an average of bitcoin prices across leading global exchanges. That values that 50,000 being auctioned at almost $19 million.

In June, Draper said he planned to help provide access to bitcoins in developing economies and use the bitcoins won in the auction as a source of liquidity.

I have made 17 investments in bitcoin companies so far, and I plan to make more, Draper wrote in the e-mail.

To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net Reed Stevenson

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Bitcoin Auction Winner Draper to Bid Again in December

For U.S.merchants, Black Friday is a huge extravaganza of deals offered and prices dropped in an attempt to entice as many shoppers as possible through their doors. In light of this sort of retail holiday, Jon Holmquist founded Bitcoin Black Friday. This year will mark the third iteration of this event and plans are already in motion to make it even bigger than last year.

Save the date: Black Friday (and therefore Bitcoin Black Friday) takes place this year on Friday, November 28th.

And, for those champing at the bit to know the deals, stay tuned for Wednesday, November 26th when the Black Friday offers will be revealed.

Stories of Bitcoin Black Fridays past

In 2012 Bitcoin Black Friday saw 300 merchants; 2013 doubled that with 600; but, in 2014, Holmquist says that the event is aiming for a staggering 6,000 merchants.

The official announcement on the BitcoinTalk forums includes a few of the merchants who will be participating this year. And, for those interested, there have been giveaways each Friday this November leading up to Black Friday. The next giveaway is November 21 and simply signing up on the mailing list (from the website) puts you into the raffle.

Two merchants from 2013s Bitcoin Black Friday stand out: Namecheap and Bees Brothers.

Namecheap is a domain registration, hosting, and management service in operation since 2001 that has been accepting bitcoins as payment since March 2013. The domain registrar participated in Bitcoin Black Friday 2013 as one of the 600 merchants and offered deals on domains to buyers who used bitcoin.

Theodore Worcester, Head of Product at Namecheap, told SiliconAngle that the company sees a surprisingly high number of users paying for services with bitcoins. The team at Namecheap support Bitcoin Black Friday and think that its a really important event to raise awareness around the retailers that embrace and support bitcoin.

Bees Brothers is an interesting family owned and operated honey business out of Cache Valley, Utah and a bitcoin success story. The company has participated in Bitcoin Black Friday 2012 and 2013 and saw a huge influx of orders from both.

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Bitcoin Black Friday 2014 plans to be bigger than ever with 6,000 merchant deals