BitPay Sees 6,260% Increase in Bitcoin Black Friday Sales

Payment processor BitPay recorded a record number of transactions during the 'Bitcoin Black Friday' event on 29th November, accounting for 6% of all bitcoin transactions on the day, according to an announcement from the company.

"[The bitcoin economy] is soaring … as merchants are seeing tremendous value in accepting bitcoin payments," said BitPay CEO Tony Gallippi.

BitPay said it processed 6,296 bitcoin transactions on Black Friday this year. Transaction volume grew by just under 6,260% compared to a year earlier – BitPay processed 99 transactions on the same date last year. Merchants with the most transactions on Black Friday were Swedish bitcoin mining equipment company KNC Miner, American digital gift-card platform Gyft and gold and precious metals retailer Amagi Metals.

E-commerce platform Shopify made bitcoin payments available to its merchants with BitPay as its payment processor on 25th November. About 75,000 merchants use Shopify's e-commerce platform. BitPay reports that it currently has 14,000 merchants who accept bitcoin payments.

BitPay is one of several startups focused on bitcoin that has raised significant amounts of funding this year. It closed a $2m round from prominent venture firm Founder's Fund in May. Competing firm Coinbase raised $5m in funding in the same month, with Union Square Ventures leading the investment round.

The biggest funding round to date was raised by a startup called Circle, which raised $9m last month to develop services that will accelerate adoption of bitcoin by merchants and their customers. The company hasn't officially announced its products yet, but it is likely to become a rival to payment processors like BitPay and end-to-end services like Coinbase. Circle is founded by Jeremy Allaire, a technology luminary who was responsible for creating the web development language ColdFusion.

Disclaimer: CoinDesk founder Shakil Khan is an investor in BitPay.