Esea says that, with bitcoin-mania in full flow, it recently began internal testing with two administrator accounts to see if it could incorporate mining of the virtual currency into its service.

The plan was abandoned on 13 April but one of the employees involved in the testing decided to use the code to harness the computing power of customers and mine $3713.55 worth of bitcoins in a fortnight before being discovered and shut down.

Esea has issued a free month of its premium products to all members enrolled in it for April and pledged to donate $7,427.10 - double the amount mined - to the American Cancer Society.

Separately, New Hampshire-based start-up Lamassu is preparing to unveil a production model of what it claims will be the world's first functional bitcoin ATM. The machine can be programmed to accept any world currency, converting and depositing them into the user's bitcoin wallet.

Since showing off a prototype earlier this year, Lamassu claims to have received "dozens of inquiries from all corners of the world" about the ATMs.

Finally, the seller of a luxury New York condo has vowed to only part with the property if the buyer pays in bitcoins.

The pad, located within the Trump Soho luxury hotel condominium in lower Manhattan, has been listed on the new luxury bitcoin marketplace BitPremier, with an asking price of 21,638 BTC at the time of writing, or $1.95 million.

The one bedroom, 741 square foot condo comes complete with shared access to a roof deck, swimming pool, fitness centre, room service and restaurants.

"There are plenty of Bitcoin millionaires out there, and it's burning a hole in their pocket," Alan Silbert, founder of Bitpremier, told Business Insider. "I think buyers will be easy to come by."