http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/10/secretive-bitcoin-startup-21-reveals-record-funds-hints-at-mass-consumer-play/Secretive Bitcoin Startup 21 Reveals Record Funds, Hints at Mass Consumer Play
Attendees visit the Bitcoin stand at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
For the past year and a half, a Silicon Valley startup has quietly convinced some of the biggest names in venture capital to back its effort to turn the technology behind bitcoin into a mass-marketed phenomenon.
Now, that company, which bears the name 21 Inc., is emerging from stealth to announce it has raised $116 million in venture funding, the most ever by a startup in the digital-currency sector, based on data from bitcoin news service Coindesk.
What it’s not yet publicizing is the precise nature of its operations. Chief Executive and co-founder Matthew Pauker will only say there will be “several interesting developments over the next weeks and months” about software and hardware products designed “to drive mainstream adoption of bitcoin.”
Since its launch six years ago by a mysterious coder who used the presumed pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin has drawn media attention as a wildly volatile digital currency. But amid stories of scandal, theft and turbulent prices, the general public has largely ignored the arguments of vocal supporters, who tout the digital currency’s potential to cut costs by removing middlemen from finance and commerce.
According to Silicon Valley investors such as those taking stakes in 21, that failure to gain mass adoption is partly because the public’s attention has been misguidedly focused on bitcoin’s limited potential as a digital alternative to traditional currencies. In reality, they say, its underlying technology has far wider applications than that. Unlike the currency transactions that are generally associated with bitcoin, these new uses could range from lawyer-free smart contracts to tamper-proof online voting systems.
21’s lead investors include U.S. venture-capital heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and RRE Ventures, along with Chinese private-equity firm Yuan Capital, with a strategic stake going to chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.QCOM +0.05% through its venture-capital unit.
Additionally, Khosla Ventures and Data Collective have invested in 21, as well as chief executives and founders from various tech companies, including PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, eBay Inc. co-founder Jeff Skoll, Dropbox Inc. CEO Drew Houston, Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Zynga Inc. co-founder Mark Pincus.
Mr. Pauker said Qualcomm’s involvement is key. He hopes to exploit the San Diego-based chipmaker’s mass-marketing and production capabilities
in the development of a suite of consumer products that integrate with bitcoin’s core technology called the “blockchain.” This technology takes the form of a public, digital ledger that’s maintained by a decentralized network of thousands of independently owned computers.
Qualcomm’s involvement could spur speculation that 21 has its sights on the so-called “Internet of Things.” That’s the idea that a myriad of smart, Internet-connected appliances will in the future communicate with servers, networks and each other to optimize their operation, maintenance and energy usage without direct human involvement.Some developers believe that bitcoin technology could play a key role in transparently managing the vast flow of information generated by these smart gadgets. The decentralized blockchain ledgers are free from the control of any one party, so smart appliances can in theory connect with computers built by other entities safely without worrying that the information was manipulated.Starting out under the earlier name of 21e6, the company – which takes its name from the 21-million limit that bitcoin’s managing algorithm imposes on the total number of bitcoins to be released – spurred intense speculation in November 2013, when a regulatory filing revealed a $5 million fundraise.
Members of the bitcoin community speculated about a secret vehicle for Silicon Valley elites to develop high-powered equipment that could dominate bitcoin mining. Mr. Pauker’s comments about a consumer focus suggest that isn’t where the company has ended up.
The initial secrecy around 21 was “solely for pragmatic reasons – we didn’t have anything to say to the world,” – says co-founder Balaji Srinivasan, who is also a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He compares 21’s work in building bitcoin products for the general public to the sequential development of 56-kilobit Internet modems, international fiber cables and wireless Internet towers, which all helped bring the Internet into people’s homes in the late 1990s.
This notion also has parallels with the mass Internet appeal achieved in the 1990s by the development of the Netscape browser by Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Mr. Srinivasan’s firm. Asked for his views on 21, Mr. Andreessen said it “is working on what they — and we — consider to be core infrastructure for mainstreaming bitcoin.”
21’s announcement extends this year’s upswing in venture capitalists’ digital-currency investments, highlighted by January’s $75 million fundraising for San Francisco-based bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase Inc., whose investors include the New York Stock Exchange. Bitcoin-focused venture capital more than tripled to $347 million in 2014 from a year earlier, according Coindesk.
The money flow is paving the way for products and services aimed at transitioning bitcoin from its volatile, Wild West beginnings into an era of more secure infrastructure and mass appeal.A week after its funding announcement, Coinbase unveiled the first licensed U.S bitcoin currency exchange. Later, high-tech security company BitGo Inc. launched a unique insurance program, while the New York-based Digital Currency Group’s Bitcoin Investment Trust earned regulatory approval to become the first publicly offered fund dedicated to owning bitcoin.
Well-funded custodial and financial services companies Xapo Ltd. and Circle Internet Financial Ltd. have also developed high-tech security and insurance projects. Meanwhile, San Francisco startup BitFury Holding BV has launched new, high-powered chips to take bitcoin mining to a new level of intensity.
None of this will matter if bitcoin doesn’t achieve mass adoption, says Mr. Pauker.
“
Bitcoin is going to change the way that people and businesses and even machines interact with each other,” he says. “But for bitcoin to realize that vision we need mass adoption. It can’t just be for Silicon Valley.”
