Digital Currency

While most payments executives have been fascinated by the spectacular year-long rise—and recent crash—in the value of Bitcoin, merchants that accept the cryptocurrency continue to struggle with a wide range of vexing issues. Overstock.com, one of the first merchants to accept Bitcoin, this week had to fix a programming flaw …

Suburban Cleveland-based merchant processor Electronic Merchant Systems announced it will move its headquarters to downtown Cleveland in mid-2018. The new location offers about 48,000 square feet of space. Point-of-sale equipment maker Star Micronics released PromoPRNT, a service that enables merchants to create printed promotions in addition to receipts. U.S. Attorney …

Bitcoin’s high-flying value has lost some altitude lately, but the cost to perform a transaction is reaching record highs. At the same time, other major cryptocurrencies have also become increasingly expensive not only to buy but to use as a means of exchange. The average fee to perform a Bitcoin …

Shares of the small merchant processor Net Element Inc. surged more than 200% Wednesday morning, apparently for no other reason than the company announced it was creating a business unit to pursue opportunities in the nascent blockchain industry. At about 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, Miami-based Net Element’s stock was priced …

The blockchain, mobile commerce, fraud, data breaches, and authentication were all hot payments topics in 2017. Expect that to continue into 2018 if the prognostications from several payments executives hold true. Much of their outlook centers on identity and authentication, especially as data breaches, large and small, continue to wreak …

With Bitcoin priced near $18,000 Friday morning, and with futures markets already trading Bitcoin contracts or getting set to, investors in the digital currency are riding high. Consumers who want to use Bitcoin to buy things, though, face a market rife with volatility, slow transactions, and high costs. Bitcoin exchanges …

Bitcoin’s heady rise this year has pleased investors and drawn the attention of derivatives exchanges and other institutional players, but it may also have obscured a development going on behind the scenes to solve one of the digital currency’s biggest drawbacks: its weakness as a payment method. Bitcoin, which started …

Square Inc. late Tuesday said it is expanding its Bitcoin pilot as the cryptocurrency continues to climb, briefly breaching the $13,000 level early Wednesday. The pilot, which Square launched four weeks ago for what it said was a “small” number of Square Cash users, is now being made available to …

Online payment processor Payza announced Monday that its customers can now use funds in their Payza accounts buy alternatives to Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency market leader. The news comes six months after Payza launched a service enabling customers to sell so-called altcoins such as Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, and Zcash. …

CME Group Inc. said on Friday it will launch a futures contract for Bitcoin on Dec. 18, a move some expect will lend considerable stability to the market for the 8-year-old digital currency. Also on Friday, Chicago-based CME’s crosstown rival, Cboe Global Markets Inc., said it will announce “shortly” an …