The number of exchanges submitting to public proof of reserves audits increased this week with Bitstamp joining the trend. A major New York law firm, McLaughlin & Stern, LLP, has started accepting bitcoins. Ben Davenport of Facebook is joining Bitcoin security platform BitGo as co-founder. And Overstock has reached $1.6m in bitcoin sales.

Bitstamp runs proof of reserves audit

Bitstamp is joining a growing crowd of exchanges and wallets with a proof of reserves audit.

According to an official blog post, Mike Hearn of Vinumeris oversaw Bitstamp’s last audit on May 24th, 2014. The procedure used is described as “a Bitcoin send-to-self transfer”.

Bitstamp summarizes that the company held 183.497 BTC in a cold wallet, which fully covers all client funds across Bitstamp and Ripple networks. The amount recorded exceeds estimated customer funds with a buffer of almost 45 BTC. A precise statement is not possible because the audit occurred without a freeze of activity on the exchange.

The full report is available in PDF format.

The report describes a “send-to-self transfer” as a transaction that sent the balance of the cold wallet from one address on that wallet to another address also on that same wallet. The transaction was cryptographically signed with a specific message so that it could identified.

As the transaction is publicly available it can be compared to the reported value in the Hearn’s report by any third party.

With this audit, Bitstamp joins San Francisco based Kraken, and Canada based Vault of Satoshi.

Major New York law firm begins accepting bitcoin

CoinApex reports that McLaughlin & Stern, LLP has become one of the first major law firm to begin accepting Bitcoin. The law firm founded in 1898 is headquartered in New York City, with offices across New York and Florida.

The law firm has partnered with Coin.co Systems, a New York based bitcoin processor.

Other law firms that have begun accepting bitcoins as payment in 2014 include top-tier entertainment law firm Sheridans (in Feb 2014), RAM Law Firm PLLC, and Kanas City based Kennyhertz Perry LLC (in Dec 2014).

Ben Davenport of Facebook moving over to Bitcoin startup BitGo

BitGo, a Bitcoin security platform, announced today via press release that it has hired Ben Davenport as co-founded and chief product officer. The company cited Davenport’s extensive experience at Facebook and Google, as well as his resume that includes being a Bitcoin angel investor and active developer.

In his new position, Davenport will oversee customer-oriented product strategy and development at BitGo. He will remain in his current position at Facebook as lead of key product initiatives until his departure for BitGo sometime this month.

BitGo describes itself as a security-as-a-service platform for Bitcoin. The company launched the industry’s first multi-sig wallet for Bitcoin in 2013. With this technology multiple people can have access to a single cold storage wallet without compromising security of the wallet or other users.

This is an important technology for commercial use where high security is needed for bitcoin transactions but multiple people need access to a wallet. BitGo’s product line uses a “2-of-3 key” configuration, meaning the production of 3 keys for a wallet, but only 2 are needed to sign a transaction.

Overstock CEO reports $1.6 million in Bitcoin sales

CoinDesk reports that Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne gave a new figure for bitcoin sales at Overstock putting the current number at $1.6m.

Byrne appeared in FOX Business (Bitcoin segment starts at 3:36). This figure is up from $1m reported by Overstock in March. Upon first accepting bitcoins in January this year, Overstock netted almost $124,000 in 24 hours.

“Bitcoin is tiny at the moment, but it’s growing at twenty-five percent a month,” he said, explaining that the market appears to be growing very quickly. Overstock, Byrne says, wanted to get in at the very beginning.

During the interview he mentioned Coinapult, Bitpay, and Coinbase—all major merchant processors in the Bitcoin space. Overstock went with Coinbase as bitcoin processor in January, 2014 when the company started accepting BTC payments.