Backers of the virtual currency bitcoin are beefing up their Washington presence as they seek to shape government oversight of the fledgling payment system.

The effort has been building since a number of federal agencies began examining bitcoin last year, but reached a milestone on Wednesday when the Bitcoin Foundation, the top trade organization for the new technology, said it had retained a lobbying firm for the first time.

The foundation hired Thorsen French Advocacy, a firm led by two former bipartisan congressional staffers, reflecting the group's desire to win support on Capitol Hill at a time when it's trying to influence an array of policy decisions. At least 13 U.S. government agencies have examined bitcoin, the Government Accountability Office said in a report last month.

The lobbyists' role will be to build "a reservoir of goodwill that we can deploy when we need to avert a crisis," said Jim Harper, global policy counsel for the foundation, on a call with reporters Wednesday. "The best work will head off problems before they become interesting to all of you."

Introduced in 2009, bitcoin is an online payment system that allows users to transfer digital "coins" for goods or swap them for dollars or other currencies. The technology made several leaps in the way money can be moved online, sparking a wave of startups and Silicon Valley investments.