BTC China and OKCoin, two of China's largest Bitcoin exchanges, suspended some money transfer services after it was reported that the central bank tightened controls on the digital currency.

Bitcoin startups are much more outspoken about security than traditional payments companies are, and the new Ciphrex wallet is no exception, claiming to be the first to use multi-signature transaction management.

PayStand has launched an online payments platform that allows a variety of payments modes, including Bitcoin, electronic checks and cards.

Charlie Shrem, a prominent evangelist for Bitcoin who is charged by the U.S. with conspiring to launder more than $1 million in the virtual currency tied to the illicit online bazaar Silk Road, is in plea talks, prosecutors said.

Payments processor Stripe will enable its clients to accept bitcoins as a payment option.

The recent IRS ruling on how Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are taxed brings the U.S. in line with regulations in Canada, Australia, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Bitcoin companies are getting more recognition as serious contenders, and as they grow they are filling their ranks with people who established their careers in the mainstream payments industry.

Circle Internet Financial, a startup aiming to make the digital currency Bitcoin more user-friendly for merchants and consumers, has raised another $17 million, bringing its total funding to $26 million.

The U.S. government will treat Bitcoin as property for tax purposes, applying rules it uses to govern stocks and barter transactions, the Internal Revenue Service said in its first substantive ruling on the issue.

Tera Group Inc. created a legal framework for Bitcoin swaps, which would let investors trade payments based on how the virtual currency performs against a real one.

Innovation can come from unlikely places. Five years ago, few would have guessed that the most widely available mobile wallets would be developed by companies like Starbucks and Google, which built their names in completely different fields. Several more disruptors are joining the scene, with even weirder origins.

Mt. Gox, the Tokyo-based digital currency exchange that filed for bankruptcy protection last month, said it had located about 200,000 of the 850,000 Bitcoins it said had gone missing.

International Bitcoin businesses have been sizing up the African market for some time, but they face massive regulatory hurdles throughout much of the continent.

Treasury's Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group will include a member of the virtual-currency community to help make regulations "better informed and more effective," David S. Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said today.

One of Bitcoin's scariest traits is the digital currency's chaotic price fluctuations, making many consumers afraid of losing money if the price abruptly plummets.

There's a new Bitcoin wallet and vault provider in town, Xapo, launched by payments veteran Wences Casares with $20 million in funding from investors.

Becoming a licensed money transmitter throughout the U.S. is a time intensive and costly process many Bitcoin businesses are struggling with. But the costs of compliance could be cut substantially with the proactive step of hiring in-house compliance officers.

Digital currency exchanges may soon file formal proposals and applications to operate under regulations set by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo after millions of dollars' worth of virtual currency vanished from customer accounts, won a temporary halt to lawsuits it faces in the U.S.

The Bitcoin Foundation appointed Jim Harper, a former lobbyist for eBay Inc.'s PayPal service, to be global policy counsel as the group seeks to persuade governments to let people use the virtual currency.