The Bitcoin Foundation added a new member to its ranks on 21st March.
BitPay, a leading merchant processor that enables organizations to accept bitcoin, has become a Gold Member of the Bitcoin Foundation, an official blog post from the organisation revealed.
The Bitcoin Foundation’s goal is to advocate globally for the use of bitcoin as a new financial tool to enable monetary access, transparency and innovation.
Speaking about the news, Tony Gallippi, CEO and co-founder of BitPay, said:
“BitPay feels it is important to support the great work done by the Bitcoin Foundation, as they are leading the continued growth and success of the core protocol upon which we build our business.”
About BitPay
BitPay’s headquarters is in Atlanta, GA. It also has offices in New York, San Francisco and Buenos Aires. The company recently released Bitcore, an open source API that allows application developers to build bitcoin features into their products.
In 2013, BitPay processed more than $100m in BTC transactions for its customers. Some of the company’s notable clientele includes Tiger Direct, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and Shopify.
BitPay has over 20,000 organizations as customers accepting bitcoin as a form of electronic payment, which costs less than the average fee for merchant credit card processing.
About the Bitcoin Foundation
The Bitcoin Foundation has three membership tiers for industry: silver, gold, and platinum. Industry membership benefits are outlined here.
BitPay, which has received over $2.5m in venture capital investment, is one of two Bitcoin Foundation Gold Members, the other one being Circle Internet Financial.
Individuals can also join the Bitcoin Foundation in one of two tiers: annual and lifetime. Individual membership benefits in the Bitcoin Foundation include a vote in the membership class and access to member forums to discuss initiatives and the organization’s overall direction.
Membership information for Bitcoin Foundation is located here.
Disclaimer: CoinDesk founder Shakil Khan is an investor in BitPay.