These networks are a key to driving widespread bitcoin adoption because we are able to reach large groups of businesses through each partnership. We are announcing today the establishment of a new referral partnership with Heartland Payments Systems.

Heartland is one of the largest payment processors in the United States. They also offer point of sale, mobile commerce, e-Commerce, marketing, and payroll solutions to their network of over 300,000 businesses and educational locations.

Now Heartland is referring their customers to BitPay’s payment platform. We are helping Heartland bring bitcoin payment technology to businesses and organizations that are interested in new payment methods.

Heartland is working with their industry-leading sales professionals to identify the businesses and organizations that would benefit the most from accepting bitcoin payments. Those businesses will be the first referred to BitPay’s platform.

We currently have more than 50,000 merchants accepting bitcoin payments on our platform. Through this referral partnership we hope to reach a number of merchants that are largely new to bitcoin, bridging the gap between the traditional and modern payments industry.