Bailey Reutzel

In widely anticipated legislation on Bitcoin, Canada is regulating digital currency businesses under existing rules for money movement and California is updating its laws to legalize the use of alternative currencies.

In widely anticipated legislation on Bitcoin, Canada is regulating digital currency businesses under existing rules for money movement and California is updating its laws to legalize the use of alternative currencies.

Bitcoin has come a long way from its meager beginning in 2009, when one bitcoin was worth a fraction of a penny. As its price and popularity grows, the decentralized digital currency is racking up a pretty note-worthy list of celebrity endorsers.

With more than 400 alternative cryptocurrencies in the market, it can be hard for point of sale providers and merchants to know which ones to accept. To determine which altcoins to support in its own point of sale system, Coinkite held a contest.

SpendSmart Payments Co. is changing its name to SpendSmart Networks. This is the fourth time the prepaid provider has rebranded in five years.

Clover Network Inc., a subsidiary of First Data Corp. has partnered with DropThought to add instant consumer and employee feedback to Clover Station, a tablet-based point of sale.

Even though Bitcoin merchant processor BitPay is not required to maintain an anti-money laundering (AML) program, the startup maintains one and is beefing it up with the hiring of former Visa executive Tim Byun.

GreenStar Payment Solutions, a venture of SinglePoint, Advanced Content Services and GreenHouse Payment Solutions, is offering debit card acceptance to legal marijuana dispensaries through the use of cashless ATMs.

Balanced's new Push to Card program allows its marketplace clients to pay sellers directly onto their debit cards, enabling those sellers to instantly spend those funds.

Licensed money services business AstroPay is launching Ripple LatAm, connecting the Latin American market with the digital currency payment provider Ripple Labs' network partners and gateways in North America, Europe and Asia.

Tax compliance provider Avalara has made many connections within the payments industry to respond to merchant demand for built-in tax reporting functions at the point of sale.

Expresscoin is launching a digital currency purchasing platform that the company says will offer the "personal customer service" that has been missing from the Bitcoin environment.

Nearly four years ago, business owner Andy Brice decided to switch to a more expensive provider for payment processing.

American Express Co. is entering partnerships that aggressively take aim at a very specific segment of spending: fare for taxis and other hired cars.

Xapo says its Bitcoin debit card will start rolling out by the end of June, and it will be accepted anywhere by using the rails of a card network, interchange fees included.

San Francisco-based tea blending company T-We Tea's revenue grew 300% after switching to Vend's cloud-based iPad point of sale system from Square Register.

LevelUp has updated its mobile payment app with a feature that empowers consumers to immediately notify the company of problems they experience with its mobile payment app.

The two most popular Bitcoin services providers, Coinbase and BitPay, are neck-and-neck in signing up merchants to accept digital currency.

The e-commerce payment processing provider Adyen is trying to capture more business in Asia from the growing number of merchants who want to sell to North America and other regions.

A data dump by hacktivists called Anonymous Ukraine, which triggered American Express to notify nearly 77,000 California residents of potential exposed information, is posing a public relations challenge for the card brand even though it says its internal systems were not breached.