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Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.

His investments include successful exits like Zynga, MakerBot, and AdMeld, as well as hot startups like Fitbit, 3D Robotics, and Moz.

In a blog post on his personal site, Feld shared his current thoughts about Bitcoin. “I think bitcoin is interesting on several levels, including as a real-life experiment with a semi-decentralized currency,” he said.

Feld explained that he has concerns with the concept of Bitcoin as a currency to displace fiat currencies like the dollar, because, he feels, Bitcoin is inherently deflationary and that is “bad” if you were to ask an economist.

On the other hand, Feld was optimistic of Bitcoin as a protocol, albeit only a few years old.

As a software person, I think of this as a platform. A new electronic payment platform that may have significant advantages over most of the existing ones. To get broad adoption, platforms need killer apps. So far, there aren’t killer apps for bitcoin. But there are some possible raw materials for killer apps. Cheaper international payments. Completely anonymous electronic payments. But the great thing about platforms is that it’s often quite hard to predict early on what the killer apps might be. Particularly for the really disruptive ones.

Feld said in the comments to his post that he owns 10 Bitcoin as an experiment.

This public statement by Feld follows other seasoned venture capitalists who are publishing their own thoughts on the currency. Recently, Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures stated that he owned 7.39 Bitcoin, but has purchased 175 over time and given most away.

CC image by Rocky Mountain Joe.

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Boost Bitcoin Fund and Accelerator

There are lots of startups getting into Bitcoin, from networks like Ripple to exchanges like BitInstant. Now there’s a new fund designed to support Bitcoin startups, called Boost Bitcoin Fund.

Adam Draper, Founder & CEO of Boost VC, announced the Boost Bitcoin Fund on his blog.

Bitcoin, the decentralized, ungoverned currency has become an obsession of mine. Almost all of my blog posts have been about it, and almost all of my meetings in the last 3 months have been in reference to it. Bitcoin is the most exciting innovation that is happening in the world today. That is why we here at Boost VC are excited to announce the Boost Bitcoin Fund.

The Boost Bitcoin Fund is a follow-on, or “start” fund for Bitcoin companies that graduate from the Boost accelerator program. The fund will provide each Bitcoin company in the summer cohort with a $50k investment after completing the program in September, in addition to the $15k invested by Boost VC. The fund is anchored by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rothenberg Ventures, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and Ben Davenport. This impressive set of investors have already established themselves as true “thought leaders” in the alternative currency space, and I’m incredibly excited to have them onboard.

The idea for the fund came together 3 months ago when we decided to accept 5-7 Bitcoin companies into our summer session. We received incredibly positive responses from the investment community following our announcement, and as a result, decided to put together this follow on fund for this cohort of companies. Interest was so strong that the capital came together in a week! These awesome investors have partnered with Boost in the hope of producing the next generation of Bitcoin entrepreneurs and innovators. We’re committed to pushing Bitcoin toward becoming the next digital frontier.

As an added bonus one fourth of this fund will be invested as Bitcoin into the startup companies.

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After the Bitcoin Crash

Although Bitcoin crashed hard last month, there are reasons to keep excited about Bitcoin, as GigaOm reports:

• Bitcoin is becoming more liquid

Gift card site Gyft has started accepting Bitcoin as payment.

• Real investors are starting to take Bitcoin seriously

This week, the WSJ reported that Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures is investing $5 million in Coinbase, a service that provides an online wallet and easy conversion between BitCoin and traditional currencies.

• Bitcoin is getting easier to understand

Forbes reporter Kash Hill kept a day to day diary of how she lived on BitCoin (albeit with difficulty) in San Francisco for a week.

• The government wants a piece of Bitcoin

 Commissioner Bart Chilton of the CFTC — the agency that regulates futures contracts  – says he’s thinking of regulating BitCoin.

Read the full report at GigaOm.

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Bitcoin News

A roundup of the top Bitcoin news from April 1 to April 7:

Tuesday, April 2

• Can Bitcoin Be Trusted as the Global Economy’s Safe Haven?
• Video: Max Keiser Predicts Bitcoin Market Growth to $1 Million Per BTC

Wednesday, April 3

• Bitcoin Stories: The Million-Dollar Pizza (10,000 Bitcoins in 2010)

Thursday, April 4 

• Is Bitcoin Hype or Reality? Real, And Also Controversial
• Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox DDoS Attack: It’s Been an Epic Few Days
• Bitcoin Hits the Front Page of the Financial Times

Friday, April 5

• Bitcoin Market Cap: Cash Currency That Crosses Borders

Saturday, April 6

• Skype Malware Spreads Bitcoin Mining Virus on Your Computer

Sunday, April 7

• Here Comes the Bitcoin Venture Capital
• Bitcoin Bubble: What Financial Experts Think

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Bitcoin Venture Capital Heats Up

Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Liew published his perspective on the incredible opportunity to invest in companies that are building new ideas for the Bitcoin ecosystem. It looks like the Bitcoin venture capital is heating up.

There are three key markets in Bitcoin:

Wallet. Holding your Bitcoins for you, serving some of the checking account functions of a bank.

Exchange. Converting from USD to Bitcoins and back.

Payments. Helping merchants accept Bitcoins for their transactions.

As a rule of thumb, VCs like to see billion-dollar markets to get excited. How can each of these markets get to be a billion dollars in size?

To build multi-billion dollar opportunities, the Bitcoin economy needs to grow 100X from where it is today, Liew goes on to say. But to put that in perspective, it grew more than 10X in the last year.

These opportunities are not without risk. Liew acknowledges that in its short existence, Bitcoin has been the target of theft and over 10% of the Bitcoins in circulation have been stolen. This and other risks will make it hard to be build sustainable businesses, but not impossible.

Via TechCrunch.

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