Digital currencies

Greek railway service operator Trainose on Wednesday announced a cooperation with leading global digital wallet PayPal, which is now available to Trainose passengers from around the world for purchasing tickets both on the website and on mobile.

PayPal Holdings acquires iZettle, one of Europe's most popular financial starters. The value of the deal is $ 2.2 billion, the companies said.

The agreement will allow PayPal to expand its presence in the global payments and represent the largest acquisition in the history of the San Jose-based company in California.

 The price of bitcoin extended its sharp tumble of the past 24 hours, dropping more than seven percent on the Bitstamp exchange on Wednesday, spooked by worries regulators may try to clamp down on the highly-volatile trading in the digital currency, Reuters reports.

European governments are pushing for bitcoin regulation as alarm grows that the world's most popular digital currency is being used by money-launderers, drug traffickers and terrorists./Fortune.com

Bulgarian police have seized enough Bitcoins to pay off a fifth of the country's national debt after the value surged by 600% in half a year, according to Daily Mail.

Officers are said to have confiscated hundreds of thousands of units of the virtual currency worth $500million from an organised crime gang in May.

Bitcoin plunged as much as 15 percent to below $14,500 on profit-taking on Dec. 8, capping a roller-coaster week that saw the currency hit a series of record highs and underlining concerns about its volatility.

The price of bitcoin has surged to a new all-time high of $13,200 at 11:04 GMT on Wednesday. The world's first cryptocurrency has nearly doubled in price over the past month.

Bitcoin has set several records in recent days. Last week, the digital currency hit both the $10,000 and $11,000 levels for the first time, crossing over $12,000 on Tuesday.

Venezuela will create its own cryptocurrency to fight the US "financial blockade" imposed by the United States. This is the idea of ​​President Nicholas Maduro, whose country is experiencing a severe financial and economic crisis, reports webcafe. 

Bitcoin is a speculative asset and people who invest in it do so at their own risk, the Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned on Dec. 1 after recent volatile trading.

Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has ruled that digital currency Bitcoin is not appropriate according to Islam “at this point.”