Bitcoin cashes in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Sales in the crypto-currency almost break the $300m mark

Crypto-currency Bitcoin enjoyed a bumper weekend last week after Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw sales rocket across the network.

Across both days – when retailers and some channel firms slashed the prices of their goods after the US Thanksgiving holiday – global sales across the Bitcoin network reached $296m (£188.83m), according to digital commerce platform Bitnet.

On Black Friday, sales reached $152m compared with $144m on Cyber Monday.

Bitcoin uses streams of code to represent monetary value and must be "mined" using large computers which complete the transactions.

Earlier this year, Dell began accepting the currency in some SMB and consumer units. A flurry of channel firms has started to get in on the action too.

Bitnet's vice president for solutions strategy Akif Khan said: "Like all other payment networks, Bitcoin saw a surge in volume over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with higher than usual payment totals over the two days.

"The Bitcoin network handled $296m in two days – that's impressive when taking into account the currency is only five years old and is still growing with respect to merchant and consumer adoption."