BitPay ends 'free and unlimited' offer for new merchants

BitPay, a Bitcoin payment platform invested by Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing, recently announced that in order to reduce the company's operating costs, BitPay will start to lay off employees. According to Coindesk, BitPay CEO Stephen Pair mentioned in an email sent to all BitPay employees that BitPay had to lay off employees in order to reduce operating costs and better coordinate the company's development pace in the industry.

The news of layoffs at the troubled bitcoin payments company has finally been confirmed following rumors that employees had left BitPay’s Atlanta offices due to layoffs, according to Qntra.

Pair's email, titled "Important Company Announcement," was sent to employees across the company. The email was provided to CoinDesk by a source close to the company, who said 20 full-time employees and contractors could be fired.

It is reported that the first 30 transactions processed by new merchants on BitPay each month are free, and each transaction thereafter will be charged a 1% fee. However, merchants of its competitor Coinbase can enjoy free fees for transactions within $1 million.

However, BitPay recently announced that it would stop providing free and unlimited services to new merchants.

In May this year, FXCM reported that Li Ka-shing increased his investment in Bitcoin payment platform BitPay through his venture capital company Horizons Ventures. The total amount of new investment has not been made public, but it is believed that it will reach over 100 million Hong Kong dollars.

It is reported that BitPay has received $32.5 million in three rounds of financing so far, with investors including AME Cloud Ventures, Founders Fund, RRE Ventures, angel investors Ashton Kutcher, Ben Davenport and Roger Ver, etc. Among these investors are Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and PayPal founder Peter Thiel.