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Sightseeing in Deep Cove and Mount Seymour

Deep Cove, BC

My family in law is still visiting and they will leave later this week, therefore we decided to do a bit of sightseeing. I had planned to go to Deep Cove with them on my boat, but because I sprained my wrist on Friday when I slipped outside the office (never read emails on your phone while walking…) we could not to do that. But of course you can also drive your car to Deep Cove, so that’s what we did.

Deep Cove, BC

Deep Cove is at the eastern end of Vancouver’s North Shore, at the entrance of Indian Arm and at the foot of Mount Seymour, just a 25 minute drive from our house. It’s a great village to visit in summer because of the combination of mountains and a peaceful bay. I actually looked at a house on the water here before we bought our current home, but because it rains a lot more in Deep Cove in winter I decided not to consider the place.

But of course the summers here are just as great as in most places in British Columbia, with temperatures in the mid-20s Celsius and clear blue skies most of the time.

Deep Cove, BC

Deep Cove has a marina with mainly small boats (at least compared to Vancouver’s downtown marinas), even on the public dock the maximum length for boats is just 36 feet. So if I had taken my own boat I would have needed to anchor in the bay. Also I would have had to call the railway bridge over the Second Narrows as my mast is too tall to pass under it. So going by car was actually a good solution.

Deep Cove, BC

We walked along the beach at low tide and looked at the many people in their kayaks and canoes. The water is normally very quiet here, so ideal to paddle around. It’s also the best place to venture into Indian Arm, a 20 km long glacial fjord with steep mountain slopes on both sides and several water falls.

Deep Cove, BC

After a lunch of sushi, sashimi and teppanyaki at a local Japanese restaurant we decided to drive up Mount Seymour. In winter Mount Seymour is Vancouver’s third ski resort (next to the ski areas on Cypress Mountain and Grouse Mountain), but in summer it’s a great place to go hiking or to enjoy the views.

View from Mount Seymour with Mount Baker in background

Because my parents in law are a bit older already we did not do a real hike, but instead enjoyed the views over Vancouver with snow covered Mount Baker in the distance. If my hand would not have hurt so much from the fall I probably would have done a short hike up and down one of the ski slopes. I’ll leave that for next time.

View from Mount Seymour with Mount Baker in background

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Only in China…

The downside of a real estate boom is that a lot of downtown buildings will be demolished after 15-20 years to make room for other (=more profitbable) buildings. In China that happens a lot, and sometimes the safety measures are a bit less than you would expect.

In the video below a tower at a busy intersection in downtown Qiqihar (Heilongjiang) was blasted without any warning for the public. A car coincidentally recorded the whole scene while standing at a traffic light. No police cordoning off the area, no spraying of water to reduce the dust, and not even a warning that an explosion would take place. Makes me wonder if a worker accidentally pushed the demolition button too early. Only in China…

Note: The video started playing automaticall (with sound…), so I decided to take out the i-frame and just put a link to the original article where the video is embedded:

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/realtime/china/20140726/52732150

Source: Shanghaiist

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The Ethereum hype

As regular readers know I am passionate about anything related to Bitcoin, especially applications that use the blockchain for more than just monetary transactions. One company that I have been following since their launch in January is Ethereum, a platform and programming language for applications built on top of a new distributed ledger (blockchain). Business Insider named them the most hyped digital currency since Bitcoin, and I think that is a correct title.

Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami (Jan 2014)

Vitalik Buterin introducing Ethereum at the Miami conference

After Ethereum was introduced to the world in January at the Miami Bitcoin Conference, its 21-year old genius founder Vitalik Buterin became an instant rock star in the Bitcoin world. People even started comparing him to Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Vitalik announced at that time that Ethereum would launch its crowdsale IPO on February 1, and I had planned to buy some Ether during that time.

However, right before the IPO should take place the sale was cancelled and since then there have not been a lot of official announcements. Because of how they handled their potential investors I decided not to put any money into Ethereum if they would try to do their IPO again. When you can’t even handle a simple crowdsale well, I wonder if you are mature enough to run an altcoin platform that should change the way we do business.

Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), a star is born - North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami (Jan 2014)

People all wanted to talk to Vitalik after his talk in Miami

Well, this week Ethereum finally launched its funding, this time without any advance notice. At least, I did not get the message and I also don’t think Vitalik mentioned it at the Chicago conference last weekend. But that did not matter, because the IPO was a HUGE success: after 2 days they already raised almost 7000 bitcoins, which is about US$ 4.8 million at current prices.

To me that was a surprise, I knew the company was hyped but I had not expected such a major hype. Why? Simply because the company is still purely a powerpoint and a couple of geeks talking at conferences about their ideas. Very good ideas I have to say, but there is no product yet and there won’t be a product until at least 6 months later. But that’s not all, because they are selling Ether (their currency) without announcing how many Ether they will selling in total (it’s an open-ended crowdsale). That means you have no clue what percentage of the company you will buy or, in venture capital language, you invest without knowing the valuation of the company.

Ethereum logo

And what do you get for that? Moe Levin put it well in a podcast interview today in which he called Ether “Casino chips that can only be used in one casino”. It may be a huge casino eventually, or maybe there will never be a casino. Or they will just keep printing new chips for new users, diluting the value of the current chips.

To make matters worse, anybody can copy Ethereum’s source code (it’s open source, so anybody can see it) and start a copy of Ethereum that works exactly the same. And that’s already being done, last night Aethereum (Yes, just one letter difference) was announced and this platform will give its coins away for free based on how many Bitcoins you own.

USD 4.8 million is a lot of money, a lot more money than the company needs to build its product. They are a low cost operation, basically just a bunch of young but very smart developers, who all get Ether as well for their efforts (if I remember correctly 9.9% of all Ether is set aside for the founders).

As a rational investor I would never put money into such a venture, but it seems most Ethereum investors are not rational. Ethereum uses an interesting incentive to get people to buy quickly, because after 14 days the price of Ether will go up. That means you’ll have a limited time to buy at the current price. This may be part of the reason why people want to put money in as soon as possible. On social media people are arguing that they just invest to help the team, and that may be true. However, I believe 4.8 million is a lot of money to give away to help a young team to build a good product, even in the Bitcoin world.

Ether sale

To be fair, the Ethereum team did nothing wrong (well, they botched their first IPO and are terrible at investor communications) and they are very clear about the fact what they offer. It’s not a pump and dump. They mention it’s not a regular investment, you just get coins that do not even exist yet. Maybe Ether will become very valuable or maybe it will never have any value, to me that’s gambling.

And that’s fine, but you won’t see me put any money into Ethereum until after they launch their coins and until they get some traction. The Bitcoin world changes so fast that by then another competitor may have emerged that is better or faster. Congrats to the team for raising so much money so easily, now the pressure is on them to deliver on the expectations they created.

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Chicago & the North American Bitcoin Conference

Chicago (July 2014)

This weekend I was in Chicago for the 2nd North American Bitcoin Conference, the same conference that I spoke at in Miami in January. I’m writing this post on my phone on the plane back home (United Airlines did not have power outlets on its seats in biz class, and I did not recharge my laptop before boarding), so hopefully not too many typos.

It does not happen often that I travel for business to a city I have not been to yet, but I had never visited Chicago so I looked very much forward to the trip: a conference about a topic that I am very passionate about combined with the chance to see a new city.

Chicago (July 2014)

Chicago turned out to be a very nice city that reminded me a lot of New York City (esp. the building style), but more open and directly on the huge Lake Michigan. It felt very friendly with lots of bars, clubs and restaurants and with several marinas close to downtown.

Although there was not a lot of time to see the city (the conference lasted for 2 full days on Saturday and Sunday), I still managed to see quite a lot of it from Uber taxis on my way to dinners or parties and from a architectural sightseeing boat trip on the rivers in Chicago.

Running in Chicago

I also started the day on both Sunday and Monday with a run along the lakeshore. There is a flat concrete trail that follows Lake Michigan’s shoreline, with parks, beaches and marinas along it. The trail offers excellent views of the Chicago skyline as well, especially north of Museum Park. One of the nicer places to run in the world, especially in warm, sunny summer weather (it was about 30 Celcius while I was in Chicago).

The conference itself was once again very interesting. Moe Levin (the organizer) told me that there were about 800 participants, similar to the number of people in Miami (the other Bitcoin conference that he organizes).

Venture Capital panel at Chicago BTC conference #tnabc

The topics were similar to other conferences, with as usual a venture capital panel (on which I was invited to speak) and panels on topics like mining (Ghash’s crossing the 51% mark (twice!) and solutions for that were discussed), and regulation (the timing of NY’s draft Bitlicenses last wek was perfect).

But the topics that fascinated me most were Bitcoin 2.0 and the talks by China exchanges Huibi and OKCoin. Both companies seem to have overcome the Chinese anti-Bitcoin sentiment and are actively internationalizing. The speed with which they are doing that is incredible (possibly another post on that later this week). BTC China, the former leader in the exchange world was not at the conference and seems to be lagging behind fast.

The Bitcoin 2.0 discussion was super interesting, although there was nothing groundbreaking new. The time for new exchanges and wallets is over, the future are the companies that live on the blockchain. Smart property and smart contracts are the new keyword in Bitcoin land.

Of course the price of Bitcoin came up as well. Consensus was that the current stable price is due to the fact that more merchants accepting BTC are coming into the market (welcome Dell!) but they all change to fiat currency the moment they receive the crypto currency. This means more supply which follows the rising demand for BTC. But once a Wall Street ETF comes onto the market (e.g. the Winkelvoss fund that is waiting for SEC approval) prices might explode. The VC panel thought the price will be in the $1200-1400 range by year end in case ETF’s will be available by then.

The Shreminator (Charlie Shrem's robot)

Charlie Shrem also had a guest appearance at the conference. He is waiting for his trial in New York and has house arrest, but he solved that by sending his robot. He could control the Shreminator robot and in that way walk around, talk to people and even give a speech on stage.

For me Chicago trip was worth the time (no weekend at home) and cost, I had a good time and met many of my global Bitcoin friends again. Thanks for another great event and the excellent organization Moe!

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Sea to Summit Trail & Sea to Sky Gondola

A couple of weeks ago the Sea to Sky Gondola started its operations, a new cable car just outside of Squamish that opens up a new high altitude hiking and snowshoeing area next to the Stawamus Chief. I heard good things about it, but I was a bit worried that it would be very busy on a weekend (some blogs were saying that waiting times for the gondola were 45 minutes on weekends). However, because the weather was very nice (30 degrees Celsius!) and my family-in-law is visiting we decided to go there anyway.

My family taking the brand new Sea to Sky Gondola

It turned out that it was not busy at all, the parking lot at the gondola entrance had a number of empty spaces and there was no line at all at the gondola. I think the weekend lines may have been due to the fact that the gondola had just opened and many people wanted to try it out. My family bought tickets to take the gondola but I decided to run (actually, mainly hike and climb) up the newly built 1o km Sea to Summit trail to the top at over 900 meters altitude.

Hiking the Sea to Sky Summit Trail

The trail starts right behind the parking lot and merges with another trail after a few hundred meters. At that point the path got really busy, but I soon found out that these were all people hiking up to Stawamus Chief and not to the top of the gondola. After about 20 minutes the Sea to Summit trail turned to the right, following the Shannon Falls trail, and it was quiet again.

Hiking the Sea to Sky Summit Trail

The Sea to Summit trail is similar to the Grouse Grind in terms of its vertical distance, but where the Grouse goes up 900 meters in less than 3 km, the Sea to Sky takes 10 km for that. A large part of the trail is relatively flat, meaning that you can recover easily, which is never the case on the Grouse Grind. But part of the trail is very steep as well and reminded me of the Grouse, I even had to climb over rocks using both my hands (on Grouse that’s hardly ever needed, only when it rains or when it’s freezing). The Sea to Summit is not a trail you want to do with young kids!

Selfie at the Shannon Falls (Sea to Sky Summit Trail)

The Sea to Summit has some beautiful sights along the trail, among others the upper Shannon Falls that are located about halfway to the top. I heard the waterfalls from far away already and was happy that the trail passed by them so I could check them out.

View over Howe Sound from the Sea to Sky summit trail

Ten minutes past the Shannon Falls is a great viewing area, where you can see Howe Sound and part of Squamish. It’s a good place to rest before tackling the final 3-4 km to the top. I just stopped for a minute for another drink: I was dehydrating fast because of the hot weather and kept on drinking water during the work-out.

Some parts of the Sea to Sky summit trail are quite hard and ropes are needed

At the final part of the trail I took the Wrinkle Rock trail shortcut, which is about 1 km shorter than the normal route but also a lot more difficult. You have to go over some rocky terrain where the fixed ropes (see picture) are needed to get to the top. From there it’s another 20 minutes of relatively steep trails through the woods to the top of the gondola.

Arrived at the top of the Sea to Summit trail, Scott & Elaine were waiting for me

After 1 hour and 57 minutes I arrived at the summit where Scott and Elaine were waiting for me. I was completely exhausted, not only because of the long and quite difficult trail, but especially because of the heat. 30 degrees Celsius is actually too hot for a hike/run like this and I drank about 2 liters of chocolate milk, water and smoothies before I started to recuperate a bit.

Made it to the top of the Sea to Sky summit!

After about 15 minutes I felt good enough to walk around at the top and so I did a bit of sightseeing with Scott. The summit area looks great and the views are stunning. I think this may become an important tourist destination in the future.

Scott looking at the map at the Sea to Sky gondola summit

It’s also a good start for some new trails that were recently built. However, because it’s high mountain area you have to watch out where you hike: last weekend a hiker died after falling only 6 km away from the top of the gondola. Easier accessibility to the backcountry does not mean that it’s less dangerous.

Top of the Sea to Sky gondola

Although I was too tired to try any of the new trails (next time!), I did join Scott on the suspension bridge that’s close to the gondola.

Suspension bridge at the top of the Sea to Sky gondola

After that I joined my family in the gondola to go down to the parking lot again. I would not advise anybody to hike down if you’re tired already. The downhill fee for the gondola is only $10 (the same as on Grouse Mountain), so that should not be a reason to hike down.

Taking the gondola down with my family after hiking up to the Sea to Sky Summit

The Sea to Summit is a much nicer hike than the Grouse Grind, but also more time consuming (it takes approximately twice as long, my Grinds normally take 50-55 minutes). It only took me 30 minutes to drive home from the gondola station, so I think I will come back here more often. However, I’ll probably wait until it cools off a bit, in the height of the British Columbia summer it’s actually too hot to do a 2 hour outdoor work-outs.

Because of its proximity to Vancouver the Sea to Summit could become a competitor to the Grouse Grind, especially for weekend hikes (a 2 hour after-work hike instead of 1 hour, plus extra travel time, will be too much for most Grouse Grinders). So far there is no official timer yet like on Grouse, so you’ll have to time yourself, but once the hike becomes more popular that may come as well. I’m looking forward to doing this one a couple of times per year!

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Mini break in Victoria, BC

Grace’ family is visiting at the moment, so last weekend we decided to take the ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island to spend a few days there. I enjoyed the trip a lot, because I had not seen a lot of Victoria during my last trip there and because of the great summer weather.

We decided to take the ferry instead of a seaplane so that we would have our own car while in town. That was a good idea, because there is a lot to see outside of Victoria. Below a couple of pictures from the 3 days and nights we spent there.

Ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay

On the ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay

On the ferry to Vancouver Island

View during the ferry ride to Vancouver Island. The Gulf Islands are beautiful, I hope to come back here soon on my own boat. Lots of places to anchor and so quiet! Happy to have this kind of places within one day of sailing from home.

Sidney, BC

Sidney, BC. A small seaside town between the ferry terminal and Victoria. We walked along the waterfront and looked at some of the shops.

Kids looking out of the window in the living room at Fairmont The Empress, Victoria, BC

Scott and Elaine enjoying the view from our living room in the Fairmont hotel. There was always something happening in the harbour and it was nice to see the ferries, seaplanes, sailing boats and whale watching tours arrive and depart continuously.

Fairmont The Empress, Victoria, BC

Fairmont The Empress, one of the best hotels I have stayed in in North America and in a great location in the center of town. I will likely stay here again on future trips to Victoria.

View from our room at Fairmont The Empress, Victoria, BC

Sunset view over Victoria Harbour, taken from our room

Fairmont The Empress, Victoria, BC

Fairmont The Empress at night

Parliament Building, Victoria, BC

Parliament Building at night, taken from the harbour

Craigdarroch Castle, Victoria, BC

Craigdarroch Castle, the former residence of mining tycoon Dunsmuir. Highly recommended to visit this huge house that was put back in its original state. 

Royal BC Museum

Royal BC Museum, explaining and showing the history and nature of British Columbia. Even Scott and Elaine liked the museum a lot.

Victoria Parliament Building

Parliament Building, next to Victoria’s inner harbour.

Victoria Parliament Building

Inside Parliament Building. The Parliament is open to the public, either on a guided or a self-guided tour.

Sooke, BC

Sooke, on the Pacific Coast. It was much colder here because of the clouds that came in over the ocean. A relaxed atmosphere in a beautiful setting, I plan to come back here.

Lunch in Sooke, BC

Lunch in a restaurant on the water, just outside of Sooke

Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC

The Butchart Gardens, about 20 km outside Victoria. Planted in a former mine, this is a nice park to stroll for an hour or 2. The park has among others a rose garden, an Italian garden and a Japanese garden.

Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC

Japanese Garden at the Butchart Gardens, Scott and Elaine posing for pictures.

Scott in the lounge at the Fairmont The Empress (Victoria)

Scott in the lounge of our hotel. We spent quite some time here every day for breakfast, drinks, high tea, appetizers and wine before dinner, and for a last glass of wine after the kids were in bed.

Horseshoe Bay from the ferry

On the ferry right before arriving in Horseshoe Bay.

More pictures of our trip are here on this set on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157645572454626/

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Bitcoin close to a tipping point? An overview of all the recent positive news

Bitcoin

Today’s warning by the European Banking Authority for banks not to sell, hold or trade Bitcoin was reported as negative for Bitcoin in mainstream media. I think these media are wrong, the fact that even the EU is now asking for regulation of Bitcoin means that cryptocurrencies are actually getting much closer to a breakthrough than I had assumed just a few months ago.

I believe Bitcoin regulation will be needed in order for it to succeed, so I applaud the fact that more regulation will come soon. Only then the average Joe will start using Bitcoin, so they might as well start regulating it sooner than later.

Mainstream media are very biased in their Bitcoin reporting, it reminds me a bit of how they report about China: mainly negative, stereotypical stories make it into the media. Over the past weeks so many positive, important things have happened to Bitcoin that I feel that it’s coming close to a tipping point. But of course you don’t read these stories in your daily newspaper or on the national news. Therefore here an overview of some of the most important Bitcoin news stories from the past weeks, that show how far Bitcoin has come already.

California makes Bitcoin legal currency
Last week California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes “various forms of altnernative currency such as digital currency” legal in purchasing goods and transmitting payments. A major step for Bitcoin!

Russian may legalize Bitcoin
After basically banning Bitcoin a couple of months ago, Russia is seeing the light. Bank of Russia deputy chairman Luntovsky said this week that the Bank of Russia is ready to legalize Bitcoin. At a conference he said: “One can’t ignore this instrument, maybe this is the future”. However, “We advocate a careful approach to bitcoin and are monitoring the situation along with the Bank for International Settlements,”

Newegg accepts Bitcoin payments
Newegg, the multi-billion dollar online retailer of computer hardware and software started to accept Bitcoin this week. According to Newegg: “Our customers have been asking for Bitcoin as a payment option for months. We believe there is a pent-up demand just waiting to be served and we are happy to open this payment option to them.” Newegg is using Bitpay to convert its Bitcoin into traditional currency.

Winkelvoss Bitcoin Trust getting closer to launch
Wall Street can still not buy Bitcoin because there are no Bitcoin instruments available to them. Therefore it’s imperative that ETFs (electronically traded funds) come onto the market. The first one will most likely be the Winkelvoss ETF, because they (again) handed in an amended S-1 to the SEC. They also announced that the ETF will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol COIN. Once this ETF will start trading I expect an immediate big increase in the Bitcoin price.

Successful US Bitcoin auction
The big news in Bitcoin land this week was the succesful auction of 30,000 BTC that the US government seized from Silk Road. Venture Capitalist Tim Draper turned out to be the winner of the auction, but he did not want to say how much he paid for them. The Bitcoin price had gone down after the auction was announced, but right after the auction was over it increased again to pre-auction levels. For me the auction is signficant not only because it was successful, but also because it signals that the US does not see Bitcoin as an illegal asset. If they would have seized drugs they certainly would not have auctioned it off!

South Korean payment processor Galaxia integrates Bitcoin
I have to admit that until a few days ago I never heard of Korean payment processor Galaxia, but after they announced that they will integrate Bitcoin most people in Bitcoin land will remember them. They are in the top 3 of largest payment processors in Korea and because of their Bitcoin integration Koreans can now pay in cryptocurrency on more than 10,000 domestic and international websites.

Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Google Finance add Bitcoin
A few weeks ago Bloomberg suddenly added Bitcoin to its terminals for financial professionals. An important prerequisite for traders to start paying attention to the cryptocurrency. And for people like me who don’t want to spend $3000 per month on real time financial news and data, both Yahoo Finance and Google Finance also added Bitcoin price data.

Apple allows Bitcoin wallets
When Apple started to ban Bitcoin wallets last year I was seriously thinking to switch back to Android, despite all the drawbacks for an Apple junkie like me. But it looks like that won’t be necessary anymore, because Apple changed its mind and started to allow Bitcoin wallets again. Great news for me and many other people who are married to the iOS infrastructure. Bitcoin now even appears in the official iPhone stock quotes app, but that’s likely because of the Yahoo Finance integration (Yahoo delivers the data for this app).

Bitcoin Bowl
Bitpay and ESPN signed a 4-year deal to rename the college football bowl in St. Petersburg, FL to the Bitcoin Bowl. Heads off to Bitpay for not naming it Bitpay Bowl, because now a 100 million Americans will hear about the Bitcoin Bowl on ESPN. According to CryptoCoinNews the Bitcoin Bowl agreement has the potential to: “To win over a public still skeptical of digital currencies and to get some good headlines in a year marked by bad press for its falling price and bankruptcy scandals, Bitcoin promoters are turning to America’s favorite pastime – football.”

Coinbase Vault
If you mined some Bitcoin a few years ago or spent a thousand dollars in 2010 or 2011 on Bitcoin, you would now be a (multi)millionaire. The problem is that if you keep your money in Bitcoin (as most would stilll do of course) you may suddenly have sleepless nights because you wonder how safe your Bitcoin really are in your online wallet. Several of my friends who intend to buy serious amounts of Bitcoin did not do so yet because of the same problem, they worry about the people stealing their coins. Of course you can keep them in paper wallets, but they can get lost and most non-techies don’t even understand what a paper wallet is yet.

Coinbase has now solved this problem with a new product called Vault. They will store your coins offline and withdrawals are time delayed, meaning that if someone threatens you and forces you to give them your pass codes they can’t access your money until after 48 hours. Also you can add multiple signatures to your account, so that you need more than one person’s password to access your money. An important product that will lead to a higher Bitcoin adoption.

MIT students all get $100 in Bitcoin
What happens if the smartest technical students would all get $100 worth of Bitcoin? We’ll find out, because all undergraduate MIT students will get $100 this fall when they arrive back on campus. The money for this was privately raised through MIT alumni and the Bitcoin community and will likely not only lead to more Bitcoin awareness but also to a lot of Bitcoin projects by MIT students.

Expedia allows Bitcoin payments
One of the largest online travel agencies, Expedia.com, now accepts Bitcoin as payment. To start with for hotel bookings only and only on its US site, but it’s a good start. Expedia uses Coinbase for its Bitcoin transactions. Expedia announced this week that the bookings in Bitcoin have exceeded their expectations.