Zynga adds Bitcoin to payment options, Bitcoin value soars

byEarnest Cavallion Jan 6th 2014 5:00PM

0Casual games publisher Zynga is now testing the use of Bitcoin in its games, a decision that has had a drastic (if temporary) impact on the overall value of the virtual currency.

"In response to Bitcoin's rise in popularity around the world, Zynga, with help from BitPay, is testing expanded payment options for players to make in-game purchases using Bitcoin," Zynga representatives wrote on Reddit. "The Bitcoin test is only available to Zynga.com players playing FarmVille 2, CastleVille, ChefVille, CoasterVille, Hidden Chronicles, Hidden Shadows and CityVille." Despite that relatively short list, the games mentioned are Zynga's most popular, flagship offerings, demonstrating that the company has quite a bit of faith in Bitcoin, an open-source, peer-to-peer substitute for real-world cash that has achieved impressive fame in the wake of numerous international economic catastrophes.

Following Zynga's announcement, the value of Bitcoin immediately jumped to a high of $1,093 per Bitcoin, according to the Los Angeles Times. It has since receded to $955.60, and continues to drop, though overall Bitcoin value remains about $50 higher than it was immediately prior to Zynga's revelation.

(Image: Coin Desk)Reddit, LA TimesShareTags: android, bitcoin, casual-games, farmville, ios, ipad, iphone, mac, mobile, money, pc, zynga.fyre .fyre-comment-media-expanded{display:none!important}.fyre-notifier-container{display:none}.fyre .fyre-comment-divider>span.fyre-comment-reply-wrapper{top:18px}.fyre .fyre-comment-divider>a,.fyre .fyre-comment-divider>a:hover{top:20px}Farmville InfoDescription

Grow fruits and veggies and raise animals on your very own farm.

Show moreMSRP

0.00 USD

Release Date

Available Now

Genre

Simulation

Developer

Zynga

Publisher

Zynga

Rating

E (Everyone)

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Medallia’s Amy Pressman On Extracting Value From Investors

Next StoryAsk A VC: Revolution Ventures’ David Golden’s Predictions For 2014FacebookTwitterLinkedInMedallia’s Amy Pressman And Sequoia’s Doug Leone On Investment

In this three-part series, we hosted Medallia, an enterprise company that offers customer experience management software, and Sequoia partner and board member Doug Leone in the studio. In this segment, co-founder and President Amy Pressman and Leone talked about how they work together at Medallia.

After staying bootstrapped for a number of years, Medallia raised $35 million last year from Sequoia Capital. Pressman went through a thorough vetting process of Leone and Sequoia, and wasn’t sure if she even wanted to raise money. But as she explains in the video, she wanted to expand her sales team, and Leone and Sequoia made the best partners to help her and her company accomplish this goal. Extracting value from this partnership beyond just a check was top of mind for Pressman.

As we explained in our first segment, Medallia essentially helps companies track how they are doing with customers on a day-to-day and even minute-by-minute basis. Further, Medallia allows companies to act on that feedback continuously (and track the outcomes). The company measures customer feedback through all channels (web-based, social phone, call center, SMS, social, mobile).

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Samsung Stock Closes Down 4.6%, Cutting $8B Off Its Market Value As Investors Worry

Samsung isn’t off to a great start for 2014 – during its first full day of trading of the new year, it lost 4.6 percent of its stock price value, which amounts to a more than $8 billion drop in market value, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The drop is likely attributable to increasing lack of investor confidence in Samsung’s ability to continue to grow its mobile business.

Outlook for the company’s upcoming quarterly results are good – analysts estimate that they will see an increase in profit derived from their mobile business, which is the big powerhouse at the company when it comes to driving earnings. But that increase will be off the pace from the previous quarter, and the fear is that in general Samsung’s ability to continue to see increasing gains in its mobile business has come to an end.

The problem for Samsung comes from a number of developments in the mobile market over the past year. First, there’s the fact that smartphone penetration at the top-end of the market is now pretty wide-reaching, meaning there’s theoretically much less opportunity to sell high-end devices than there might have been previously.

There’s also ample price pressure making its way into the world of smartphone sales. Google’s Nexus devices continue to set examples for high quality hardware at lower, contract free prices, and now Motorola is also offering extreme value for money with the $179 Moto G, and the just-reduced Moto X at $399, a price drop made permanent earlier this week. To compete with Google and Google-owned Motorola on price, Samsung would inevitably find margins on its products lower than usual since budget devices becoming more important drives down mobile profit overall.

Samsung held a conference designed specifically to address the concerns of analysts and investors back in November last year, where it tried to reassure its backers and market watchers that it had the right plans in place to continue growth. However investors seem unconvinced. Its stock price was mostly flat coming out of that event, and both for the last day of 2013 and now the first day of 2014, price has dipped considerably.

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