Unfazed By Bitcoin's Wild Swings And Mysterious Origins, Silicon Valley VCs Place Their Bets
Bitcoin’s record highs and the ensuring surge in hacking attempts and thefts may be grabbing headlines. However, beneath the chaos, Silicon Valley’s best-known venture firms are finally starting to make real bets around the crypto-currency. The price of a single bitcoin had more than quintupled to $265 amid a banking crisis in Cyprus and new signs from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that regulators will tolerate the currency. It then settled back down to $120 as increased volumes and DDOS attacks hit the biggest Bitcoin exchanges today and yesterday. While anyone who has ever worked in trading knows that a chart like this often ends in a world of pain, there is a growing sense that Bitcoin, or another math-based currency like it, is here to stay. “It’s far from certain that Bitcoin is going to be a big deal,” said Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Liew, who has made two investments in the space. ”But the potential for disruption is enormous. ...
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Why VCs Love The Bitcoin Market
Editor’s note: Jeremy Liew is a managing director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. As a VC, my interest in the Bitcoin ecosystem is not ideological but, rather, mercenary. I see the opportunity for Bitcoin to disrupt multi-billion dollar markets, but in doing so also create new big markets. There are three key markets in Bitcoin.
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