Yet another week of tumult rolls through the Bitcoin cryptocurrency market and community as curiosity piques about the interest of regulators in the virtual currency. News is beginning to trickle in from Monday’s closed-door meeting between representatives of The Bitcoin Foundation and a bevy of federal regulators and lawmaker advisors. BitPay has joined the bandwagon with Coinbase in offering microtransactions for BTC payments to assist bloggers and other content creators to take tiny donations. And The Oxford Online Dictionary has added “Bitcoin” to its list of words, adding yet-another-ounce of pop cultural significance to the currency.

Bitcoin thought-leaders meet with US government agencies over regulation

Monday, representatives from the Bitcoin Foundation met in a closed-door meeting with federal officials in Washington to discuss the nature and regulation of the cryptocurrency. No doubt spurred by recent events that have led regulatory agencies to take notice of Bitcoin and governments to decide that BTC is a currency, this meeting is likely to be one of many to come in the proceeding year.

Many different high-level agencies were in attendance including the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, and the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Division (FinCEN) of the Treasury Department. This is a whos-who of the regulatory and executive agencies who will enforce the laws and advise lawmakers on what to do with the virtual currencies.

An article in The Washington Post noted that while regulators seemed initially skeptical, they seemed genuinely interested in understanding the subject and not being argumentative or combative. A good sign for something that intersects directly with the law and regulation of currency in the US, which is a topic rife with conflict and tension.

“You could tell the folks there were certainly concerned about the potential use of Bitcoin for illicit purposes,” said Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, who attended the meeting. “What the Bitcoin Foundation tried to stress is that Bitcoin is less useful for those purposes than other centralized virtual currencies. I think that got through, but the feeling from regulators wasn’t, ‘Oh boy, all of our concerns have been laid to rest now, and thank you for coming.’”

Patrick Murck, the Bitcoin Foundation’s top lawyer, told reporters that he felt hopeful about this meeting and the interest of regulators.

“The foundation has asked FinCEN to be open and transparent as they move forward,” said Murck. “FinCEN’s saying, ‘Not only are we going to do that, but we’re going to introduce you to the whole regulatory community.’ And that’s new.”

BitPay joins microtransaction bandwagon adding capability for content creators

Content creators on the Internet have long needed to monetize their product and service for audiences and this has been done with advertisements, subscription, and even donation. What’s been out of the grasp for some time has been microtransactions due to the prohibitive nature of transactions themselves requiring huge fees that swamp the “micro-” part of transaction.

To assist content creators, Bitcoin payment processor BitPay has added a solution to their merchant tools that enables content creators to take micropayments in BTC in the form of BitMonet.

Started in 2013 by Ankur Nandwani and Valerie Chao, Bitmonet enables publishers to monetize online content.  It’s free and easy to install, and allows publishers to sell their content via small transactions or by using a subscription model.

Publishers who have signed up for a BitPay merchant account can easily install the BitMonet script on their website to start collecting payments. This comes with the option to collect the incoming bitcoins or cash that out into a daily settlement sent directly to their bank account.

Earlier this month, Coinbase started their own microtransaction service directed also at online content creators allowing users to transact in quantities as small as 1 satoshi (or 0.00000001 Bitcoin.) With the popularity of these programs and tools coming from Bitcoin payment processors, it might herald the capability of a real-actual microtransaction platform that the Internet has been waiting for.

“Bitcoin” added to Oxford Online Dictionary

Unfortunately, this also means that “bitcoin” will be joining such interesting words as “twerk.” However, the subject matter of the Oxford Online Dictionary, like any other dictionary, is to provide a reliable guide of the popular use of words in mainstream culture.

Without further adieu: the entry in Oxford Online Dictionaries.

noun

[mass noun]

a digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank:

bitcoin has become a hot commodity among speculators

[count noun] a unit of bitcoin:

bitcoins can be used for online transactions between individuals

Origin:

early 21st century: from bit4 + coin

As a technology and virtual currency, Bitcoin has had a very real cultural impact worldwide not just because of the current enthusiast community, but because nations such as the US, Germany, and Thailand have taken notice. As governments and news agencies continue to report on the progress of the currency it will continue to grow in attention and popularity.

The addition of bitcoin to the OOD may simply suggest that the word has found enough use to be recorded. The real test of the strength of the currency and the word will be if or when it is added to the Oxford English Dictionary.