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Bing adds Bitcoin support to its currency conversion tools

Bing adds Bitcoin support to its currency-conversion tools

By Rohan Swamy | Updated: 11 February 2014 16:09 IST

Back in the year 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto, launched Bitcoin, the idea behind it was simple - create a digital currency that allows you to spend freely, like the real money in a person's billfold or purse. Over the last five years Bitcoin has seen both immense popularity and scandals. The popularity of the digital currency, which has spread across the globe slowly, has now prompted Bing, Microsoft's search engine to offer a currency convertor for it, in collaboration with Coinbase.

On the official Bing blog, the Bing team writes that it has now launched a convertor to track real time fluctuations for Bitcoin. The service was launched by Bing on Monday, and it offers conversion support for over 50 currencies with Bitcoin. On the official Coinbase website, (https://coinbase.com/home), the current buy price is $711.83 for one Bitcoin. It is interesting to note how the peer-to-peer payment system has seen both success and controversy at the same time.

In a report, the currency, which is a part of roughly 93 virtual currencies is valued at over $13 billion. On the other hand it has also been declared illegal by Russian authorities saying that it could be used for money laundering and terrorism. The report stated that the Bitcoin trade was highly speculative and that the unit carried a risk of losing value.

According to the new currency convertor, there is a real time manifestation of the price fluctuation of the virtual currency. So, a person can check how much Bitcoins can be purchased in $2,000, or how much would a smartphone cost in Bitcoins. There are conversion facilities available for currencies like US dollars, British pounds, euros, Indian rupees amongst others. Currently one Bitcoin is worth Rs. 44,013.89.

It must also be noted that Bitcoin has fast become the most expensive currency in the world, where at one point of time it was valued at $1200. The Coinbase blog states there are nearly one million Bitcoin wallets, 4,000 API key applications and over 23,000 merchants on its platform.

India had shut down Bitcoin exchanges in December last year, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had issued an advisory regarding it. While some Bitcoin traders have resumed trading in India calling for a regulatory framework, it still remains to be seen whether the digital currency will find popularity in the country

Cryptocurrency Prices across Indian exchanges

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