Digital currency payments processor GoCoin has received a new strategic investment from US-based mining company GAW Miners.
The move represents the latest investment for the Singapore-based service, which offers payments options for bitcoin as well as a number of digital currencies.
GoCoin declined to disclose the amount, but called the investment “meaningful”. GoCoin has received investments from a number of companies in the bitcoin space, including bitcoin mining giant BitFury.
According to GoCoin, the funds will be used to continue developing its proprietary payments platform, as well as build out its existing infrastructure. The company said that GoCoin is exploring cooperative efforts with GAW, and has plans to integrate its new altcoin, paycoin, into its payments service.
The year-end funding caps a busy year for GoCoin. The firm has inked partnerships with a number of companies, most notably PayPal, and according to co-founder and CEO Steve Beauregard, the move will position GoCoin toward continued growth in 2015.
Beauregard told CoinDesk that overall, the past year has been a fruitful one for the company. He said:
“2014 was an absolutely exceptional year from the GoCoin perspective.”
Growth for GoCoin
Beauregard characterized the company’s efforts in the last year as a bid to grow the proliferation of crypto-payments options among merchants. Companies within GoCoin’s network include Shopify, CheapAir and Hustler magazine.
GAW CEO Josh Garza echoed this sentiment, telling CoinDesk that his company “really believes” in the GoCoin team and cited the payments startup’s efforts as a worthy investment. In addition to GAW and BitFury, other companies that have made strategic investments in GoCoin include KnCMiner, Bitcoin Shop, and ZoomHash.
Beauregard also cited initiatives focused on regulator outreach as an important part of GoCoin’s growth strategy.
“The progress we have made educating regulators and banks will pave the way for generations of low cost cryptocurrency payments and protection of consumer privacy in commercial transactions,” he said.
Paycoin addition
No date has been set for GoCoin's expected integration of paycoin. According to Beauregard, there is a need to look into new coins as the market evolves and the needs of merchants change.
Paycoin has run into headwinds in the past few days that have raised questions about the project. After suffering an early fork during the proof-of-work phase, GAW was forced to issue new wallet updates this weekend during a problematic transition to proof-of-stake.
According to GAW staff, the plan was to "scale down" the network hash rate during the transition, which involved an extension of the proof-of-work phase by another 24 hours. Some in the community questioned the need for such a move, given the hard-coded parameters for such a shift in proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid crypto networks.
What followed was a multi-hour freeze in the blockchain on Sunday after block 8046. The stoppage forced services like crypto-conversion tool ShapeShift to issue advisories to its customers about the stuck blockchain and complaints later rose among customers about the lack of information.
After several hours GAW staff announced that a fix was underway. During this time, the project's public GitHub page became unavailable as well, and later GAW staff blamed activity during the final hours of proof-of-work as the cause for the holdup. Updated wallets have since been released.
GAW spokesman Christian Gogol told CoinDesk at the time that "paycoin is still quite young" and that such events are to be expected during the early post-launch days.