Bitonic is the first Dutch Bitcoin company, founded in the spring of 2012. Our mission: Bitcoin for everyone. Bitonic currently has an extensive and experienced team more than happy to assist you.
Today is the 22nd of May and that means it is Bitcoin Pizza Day! Every year on this day, Bitcoiners celebrate the magical moment that bitcoin gained monetary value for the first time in 2010: ten years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC to have two pizzas delivered home. Happy 10th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day!
On april 21st the Dutch Senate voted in favour of new regulations regarding the Dutch implementation of the European Anti-Money Lau ndering Directive (AMLD5). These new regulations are expected to go into effect within several days and from that moment Bitcoin companies will have to adhere to the new rules.Because of this we have adjusted our systems and starting today our new verification process will go live.
Today, around 21:25, the 3rd Bitcoin Halving took place. At that time, the amount of new bitcoins that can be mined per block halved from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. As a result, the cost price of new bitcoins doubled and annual inflation in the bitcoin economy fell from around 3.6% to around 1.8%.
In the exceptional year 2020, Bitonic celebrates its 8th anniversary today. A new era has started with the new legislation and on top of that, the Corona pandamic has turned the world upside down. Therefore, Bitcoin is more important than ever because fiat money is worth less every day.
Bitcoin Optech helps Bitcoin users and businesses integrate scaling technologies. This initiative is an important contribution to Bitcoin and therefore we feel it's important to support this.
Last Tuesday, Bitcoin protocol programmer Pieter Wuille submitted a proposal on GitHub with changes to the Bitcoin Core code that allow the much-discussed Taproot and Schnorr Signatures upgrades. The proposal is an important milestone in the development process and represents the first concrete proposal to implement those technologies. Especially the Schnorr Signatures will be an awesome upgrade!
Social media platform Twitter officially added a Bitcoin emoji last weekend. From now on, when Twitterers use the hashtag #bitcoin or #btc, Bitcoin emoji will automatically be added!
Today is the eleventh anniversary of the launch of the Bitcoin network. The first block, also called the genesis block, was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on 3 January 2009, making the Bitcoin network a reality. Now, 11 years later, Bitcoin still exists and the network is stronger than ever before. Congratulations Bitcoin!
Today we are proudly launching our brand new website! A complete upgrade of our systems and a overhaul of our corporate identity. Our famous triangles have also been pushed to the next level.
The first official Lightning conference took place in Berlin. This event is a spiritual successor to the Berlin #LightningHackday series. But unlike the “barcamp” format of the previous developer-centric events, The Lightning Conference broadens its reach to also appeal to businesses and the larger community. Bitonic was a sponsor of the event, as we feel it is important to support Bitcoin development and initiatives that aid the technical consensus-building process.
Fiat deposits for the pre-alpha iOS testers are from today available. This is the next step to the complete BL3P app experience. Happy trading!
You can apply here: pre-alpha.bl3p.eu
Despite the recent decline in the bitcoin price, the fundamentals of the network looks better than ever before. The hashrate continues to break record after record and the adoption of SegWit increased several times in September to over 50%.
Earlier this week SegWit adoption was for the first time above 50%, and now the Bitcoin hashrate has set a new record. For the first tme the hashrate was above 100 EH/s setting the record at 108,5 EH/s!
SegWit, the scaling solution that in 2017 was introduced with the UASF, creates more space in a Bitcoin block. Not every user makes use of this upgrade, but from today half the users do!
Today Bitonic has welcomed the 40th colleague. This is a great milestone, but certainly not the last. Next one, 50th!
Bitonic is this year again the proud sponsor of Baltic Honeybadger at Riga, Latvia. The Bitcoin event, which focuses on Bitcoin and surrounding technologies, was this year a success again. The speakers and panelists spoke about interesting subjects such as privacy, incentives, bitcoin threats, and the Lightning Network.
For more info and videos: hodlhodl.com
Bitonic travelled to Tel Aviv to attend Scaling Bitcoin. This scientific and technical event full of interesting workshops was completely focussed on the Bitcoin-protocol. Erlay, Lightning Network, and Miniscripts were discused in great depth. Bitonic thinks it very important to support the Bitcoin ecosystem and therefore was one of the sponsors this year.
For more info and videos: Scaling Bitcoin 2019 or via bitcoin.nl
The third Lightning Hackday took this year place in Berlin. Various speakers were here to talk in depth about the Lightning development and the associated technical innovations. Eltoo and Schnorr signatures, among other things, were discussed.
More info: Lightning Hackday Berlijn [Dutch]
Pieter Wuille has created a special new language for smart contracts on Bitcoin. Miniscripit makes it easier for developers to create smart contracts or conditions for the spending of bitcoins. Again progress for the Bitcoin network!
A great new milestone for Bitonic. Today the 400.000th bitcoin has been sold. Both Bitonic and Bitcoin have grown a lot since 2012 and together they will keep growing!
Since the founding of Bitonic in April 2012, we have sold our 400.000th bitcoin today. A memorable milestone for the Netherlands & Belgium. In April 2012, bitcoin was worth ~4.00 €, today the price is ~ 10,000 €.
After the success of Building on Bitcoin last year is Bitonic again a proud sponsor. This year was it in the own city, Amsterdam! At the Beurs van Berlage interesting subjects such as privacy, security, and wallets were discussed. Bitonic was there in great presence, so a succesful event!
For more info and videos: breaking-bitcoin.com
Bitonic has always been involved in the developements surrounding Bitcoin. The Core developers maintain and enchance Bitcoin, and make the further growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem possible. That is why Bitonic is the proud sponsor of CoreDev meetings that this week were in Amsterdam.
For the worldwide adoption of bitcoin acceptance at webshops, websites, and stores are of great importance. We regret to inform you that we can longer support BitMerchant. However, we still have trust we will offer the service in the future, but why have not a specific date yet.
A new proposal for the Bitcoin protocol of Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, Ivan Beschastnikh, and Sasha Fedorova would decrease the transaction bandwith of Bitcoin nodes by 75%. This is another stap in the development of the Bitcoin network.
9 years ago the first real-world transaction with bitcoin took place. It was the first time that an item from the “real world” was traded for 10.000 bitcoins. The items were two pizza’s! Now we can state that the pizza´s were very expensive, but it has been of great value for the representation of the value of bitcoin.
Another upgrade for Bitcoin Core. Version 0.18.0 includes new functionalities, bug fixes, and improvement of the performance of full-node software. Additionally, the new Hardware Wallet Interaction (HWI) tool is also published. This upgrade makes the interaction with hardware wallets possible. To version 0.19.0!
For the worldwide adoption of bitcoin acceptance at webshops, websites, and stores are of great importance. We regret to inform you that we can longer support BitMerchant. However, we still have trust we will offer the service in the future, but why have not a specific date yet.
Bitonic always watches the innovation in the cryptocurrency space. Thanks to our years of technical expertise we have great trust in Bitcoin. Nevertheless, there is a great interesting project named Grin. Bitonic is therefore proud sponsor of this innovation and the Grin event in Amsterdam.
For more info and videos: grinamsterdam.com
Exactly 10 years ago, the so called 'genesis block' was created: the first block of the Bitcoin blockchain. Satoshi Nakamoto made a statement by inserting the frontpage of that day's The Times newspaper into the code of this first block, as can be seen in the block data.
More information about this event:
Exactly ten years after the Bitcoin whitepaper publication, Financieel Erfgoed foundation and Bitonic host an event to celebrate the fundamental write-up of the Bitcoin protocol.
For more info about this event: Celebrating 10 years Bitcoin whitepaper
At the start of July, Building on Bitcoin, or just BoB, took place. Building on last year's Breaking Bitcoin conference in Paris, a large group came together in Lisbon. Bitonic was there to witness the talks and join the discussion. BoB focussed on further building the Bitcoin protocol and applications to use Bitcoin.
Celebrates its sixth birthday! Only six years ago, on May 1 2012, Bitonic was officially founded. This is a big milestone for us a a Bitcoin company, and will be celebrated as such…
BL3P is growing and accepts new users again, upon invitation. A growing number of users embrace the platform, providing a stable backbone for future growth.
Bitcoin reaches the milestone $10.000. World news: Bitcoin prices surpass the ten thousand dollar mark. Bitonic makes the national news with an item in its Amsterdam office.
Segregated Witness 2x activation fails after rejection by the Bitcoin community. Regarded as an attack on the core blockchain, the battle results in a significant victory for Bitcoin.
The activation of “Segregated Witness” (abv.: SegWit) in the Bitcoin Protocol is here. This is a huge step, meaning enhancements in security and scalability of Bitcoin.
A new step in the activation of Segregated Witness: miners activated BIP91. This brings the optimisation SegWit offers one step closer, a positive development for Bitcoin.
The bitcoin community shows its strength in a joined effort, by forcing an “User Activated Soft Fork” to enable Segregated Witness (SegWit). This is to ensure safe scaling and growth of the Bitcoin network.
Today the price of one bitcoin reached heights of over $2100 (€1895), breaking its previous all-time-high record. Cause for celebration, more so as today marks the 7th anniversary of the first time bitcoins represented real-world value: two pizzas were purchased for 10.000 bitcoins in 2010 :-)
BL3P, the Dutch Bitcoin exchange by Bitonic, is available to all European countries starting today. Anyone living in the SEPA zone with a SEPA bank account can now sign up and start trading bitcoins at BL3P.
Segregated Witness (SegWit) will be active on Litecoin in two weeks. Litecoin is one of the first altcoins that started in the early days of Bitcoin. By activating SegWit Litecoin is now more technically advanced than Bitcoin: higher transaction capacity and ready for innovations such as the Lightning Network.
In addition to at our office in Baarn we will now also be able to receive you at Weesperstraat 394-396 in Amsterdam!
Bitonic was officially founded five years ago, on May 1, 2012. This is a significant milestone for us as a Bitcoin company, so Bitonic will be celebrating throughout May!
It’s official, the price of a single bitcoin is higher than ever. The previous all-time-high was in 2013, when bitcoin was traded for prices up to $1175 on several Bitcoin exchanges. Today, the price is higher than it was in 2013. A historic moment in the history of Bitcoin.
The first block in the Bitcoin blockchain was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on January 3rd, 2009 - eight years ago.
Bitcoin.nl is a new initiative by Bitonic. Our mission is to provide reliable and current news for all information relevant to Bitcoin. A good source of information is an important starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about Bitcoin.
The sixteen millionth bitcoin was mined today in block number 440.000. The block reward of 12.5 bitcoins in this block pushed the total amount of bitcoins in circulation to over 16 million.
After an extensive testing period on the Bitcoin testnet, this is the first version of Bitcoin Core to include Segregated Witness for the Bitcoin mainnet. Miners are now able to signal that they will switch to this implementation. Segregated Witness will activate when 95% of the miners support the switch.
It has been 10 months since the last Scaling Bitcoin workshops took place in Hong Kong, China. This year the workshops were held in Milan, Italy. Bitonic was a sponsor of the event, as we feel it is important to support Bitcoin development and initiatives that aid the technical consensus-building process.
Today, the Dutch Blockchain Conference 2016, previously Dutch Bitcoin Conference, took place. It was hosted at the KPMG headquarters and tickets for the event were completely sold out - "Blockchain" is hot ;).
Bitonic sponsored the event. In addition, we launched a proof-of-concept that provided every attendee with some tokens that could be exchanged for other tokens. A successful day with many positive reactions. Read more about our proof-of-concept and our new service called ownchain
A while ago part II of the Scaling Bitcoin Workshops took place and a lot has happened since then. After the first workshop in Montreal, this time also two representatives (Jouke & Niels) from Bitonic traveled to Hong Kong to attend the second workshop.
In this report we would like to not only refer to the Hong Kong event, but also to the events that occurred in the meantime. We discuss in this report the roadmap of Core Developers, the difference between a soft forks and hard forks and the status of a number of developments, such as Lightning Network.
Invitation only developer events for hacking together on Bitcoin-Core and related projects. The Bitcoin-Core development team is distributed all over the world. Sometimes is good to come together and discuss and work face to face.
Bitonic was sponsor
More info: Coredev.tech
May 1 we already existed four years and this is traditionally celebrated with a BBQ @ HQ Bitonic
Michiel (a.k.a. Gielbier) has a study background in Medicine, but has turned his Bitcoin-hobby into a career at Bitonic. From a young age Michiel played around with Qbasic, VisualBasic and Delphi, as well as PHP/HTML/Flash for website design.
More recently, Michiel has started to use PHP/NodeJS to design web applications. This experience will prove useful for Bitonic, as here Michiel will take on the role of app developer for various projects.
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After testing in the closed beta phase, BL3P is now open for everyone in The Netherlands with a bunq bank account. We tested and optimized BL3P, with help of the users from our beta phase. Thanks for your testing and feedback!
You can register at BL3P if you have a bunq bank account. Are you not yet using bunq? Download the bunq app and open a free bank account.
This represents one of the most hotly anticipated and exciting developments to date that is an important foundation for many future improvements and innovations. Segregated Witness frees up space on the Bitcoin blockchain by securely moving transaction signature data to a specially delegated “Segregated Witness” data structure outside of the transaction block.
Just before New Year, we sold our 200 000th bitcoin! We are very proud to have come this far and would like to thank our customers for making this happen.
To celebrate this, we created five bitcoin-related puzzles. The solution to each puzzle was a key required to start (and sometimes solve) the next.
The puzzle is still online: Puzzle 2016
Part two of the Bitcoin scalability workshops. While the first conference served as input to solutions, focusing on analysing the problem, this conference serves as output; here, solution to the problem are presented.
Read more on: Scalingbitcoin.org
Bitonic attended the 'Scaling Bitcoin' workshops in Montreal, a conference aimed at exploring the issues and hurdles surrounding Bitcoin's scalability.
We wrote about our findings here here.
In recent months, the Bitcoin development community has faced difficult discussions on how to safely improve the scalability of the Bitcoin network without affecting its decentralized nature. To aid the technical consensus building process, there is a pair of workshops...
Read more on:Scalingbitcoin.org
Our exchange BL3P has been integrated into TabTrader.
TabTrader is a free mobile trading terminal. Fast price charts with technical indicators, drawing and trading directly from charts. Includes widget. Price alerts by push notifications. Newsfeed from Reddit, Coindesk, Bitcoin Magazine.
Jeroen has a BSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam and will be starting his MSc in Computational Finance next year; an all-rounder with a perfect mix of technical know-how and financial knowledge. At Bitonic, Jeroen will be focusing on some of the technical challenges facing Bitcoin.
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Due to a large influx of transactions the last few days the Bitcoin network is under pressure. Apart from a record breaking number of transactions being handled by the Bitcoin network, there are few problems as a result of this stress-tests.
Today we sold our 175,000th bitcoin!
To reach this milestone, we only needed a bit more than 3 years. 200,000 bitcoins, here we come!
Today the second Dutch National Bitcoin Congress was held, organized by Rutger van Zuidam and Vincent Everts. Last year the event was held at ABN AMRO, this year it was held at the ING Head Quarters.
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p>Our colleague Jouke was interviewed by Vincent Everts and asked about the experiences he’s had with Bitonic and Bitcoin in the Netherlands. The day was a success, with many interesting speakers. Bitonic not only sponsored the event, we also took care of the access badges and we were hosting a stand at which people could experiment with Bitcoin.
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p>
We’re already looking forward to the 2016 edition! If you want to get an impression of this year’s event, click here
Today we organized our 3rd joined event with Ordina. During this edition we enjoyed the cooperation of Holland FinTech - a huge gain!
In a seminar hosted by George van Hout, a full room listened to many very interesting speakers. The theme was: 'Enabling the sharing economy', on which different experts gave his or her vision on today’s technological changes.
For more information about this seminar: Seminar Enabling the sharing economy
We celebrated our 3-year anniversary traditionally with a BBQ
Today Bitonic has won the Dutch Fintech award in the Bitcoin category - one of the awards for the most promising financial startups. This is an achievement which we are very proud of!
Thursday, January 15, 2015 we have reached a new milestone: the 150,000th bitcoin is sold through bitonic.nl! Something we could only dream of when we started our company less then three years ago with a stock of 100 bitcoins.
Bianca has joined the team to coordinate marketing and business development activities. Bianca has over 10 years experience in the recruitment industry in both commercial, coordination and support roles. With this broad experience, she is a true midfielder! In addition, she shares a passion for developments in society, such as Bitcoin.
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Spar Arnhem Central station accepts bitcoin starting today.
Their system will support bitcoin payments in the near future.
Starting today, the bitcoin donations to the Dutch electronic freedom foundation Bits of Freedom are handled via our BitMerchant.
Jonneke studies International Business Management (MBA) at Stanford International University in Bangkok, Thailand. Jonneke will be researching international possibilities and challenges of Bitcoin. She will also be looking into the Chinese market.
Daan Schröder will be the 11th member to strengthen our team. As project manager, Daan will be responsible for making sure all projects at Bitonic run smoothly.
Geert Blom will be focusing on all matters related to Risk & Compliance, ensuring that, through Enigma Consulting, BL3P & BitMerchant's Risk & Compliance is covered.
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The American webshop Newegg, with a revenue of over two billion dollars a year, now accepts bitcoin.
The American invester Tim Draper wins all ten blocks of a total of almost 3.000 bitcoins.
Erik is a freelance programmer, experienced in developing software for various banks. Erik will be using his knowledge and skills to support the development of our exchange BL3P.
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Bitcoin payments receiving in euro through Mollie. With this you can accept worldwide Bitcoin payments without any risk.
Giuseppe, originally from Palermo, Italy, has many years of experience as back-end developer at various companies. Giuseppe is a great addition to our team as Systems Analyst & Software Developer.
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On May 1st 2012 Bitonic officially opened, with only 100 bitcoin in stock (valued at about 5 euro a piece at that time).
Bloomberg shows the bitcoin exchange rate within their Professional service
As fifth member of our team at Bitonic, Annelot will be focusing on optimizing customer support, company planning and HRM.
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We needed more space, from only 30 m2 to more than 170 m2.
In less than 2 years we've sold our 100,000th bitcoin, which is also a milestone for Bitcoin in the Netherlands.
Several Bitcoin services are affected
We released our exchange platform, codenamed BL3p, to a select group of test users. The trading engine has been developed by an external party with years of experience in the financial world.
Winning Poker Network also accepts bitcoin.
For Farmville 2 and other games.
January 1st we officially started the request for a license with the Dutch Central Bank. We hired Enigma to help us in this process.
Even more valuable than gold.
Values bitcoin at $1300.
don't trade with bitcoins.
Crash to $600, but recovers to $900.
Daan is responsible for marketing and business development. In addition, Daan is also responsible for the Bitonic Academy.
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Matthijs de Waard joins our team. Matthijs' responsibilities include customer service, financial department support and human resources.
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Bitcoin has a promising future.
Meanwhile the word bitcoin is mentioned in the Dutch dictionary Dikke van Dale.
Pieterjan has years of experience from his own online back-up storage company (mindtime) and started at BTCNext in 2013. This knowledge and experience are a perfect addition to Bitonic's commercial activities.
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Bitonic is taking over BTCNext! Pieterjan Goppel will be the third addition to our team!
FBI takes up 26.000 bitcoins.
Starting now, (web)shops will be able to accept bitcoins as payment through BitMerchant!
As medior developer at Bitonic, Roy will be responsible for the technical implementation of BitMerchant.
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Wouter will be responsible for all financial matters within Bitonic.
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Bitonic's first anniversary will be celebrated at our new offices in Driebergen.
Until now Bitonic was operated from Robert's living room, the time had come to get some office space.
The European Central Bank has published a document about e.g. bitcoin.
Gavin Andresen announces start of the Bitcoin Foundation
Customers will now be able to sell their bitcoins to us. The funds will be transferred the next business day. This makes trading bitcoins much easier and faster, now that no international bank transfers to exchanges are involved.
Bitonic B.V. originally started as V.O.F. on May 1, 2012.
Within 24 hours we served our first customers.
"Bitonic", an anagram to Bitcoin, will be our new brand name starting June 12, 2012.
Before Bitonic, there was: idealcoin.nl.
Buying Bitcoins was pretty difficult in 2012. Jouke, Robert en Niels made it their mission to solve this: Buying bitcoins easily using the Dutch payment system iDeal.
Tradehill, One of the biggest bitcoin-exchanges at the time, closes for business because of persistant problems with financial partners.
Bitcoin is introduced in popular culture via American tv series "The good wife"
Must have been the tastiest pizza ever ;)
Less than two weeks after the Bitcoin network officially started, the first registered bitcoin-transaction is propagated.
The "Genesis block" has been mined!
"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by Satoshi Nakamoto