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The virtual currency has been on a winning streak in recent days . Bond holders have had to endure a volatile ride to say the least over the past year. Let's go live to the Dublin Web Summit where we can speak to the CEO of a leading global developer of Bitcoin software. It's Peter Smith of block chain and he joins us now. Peter great to have you with me this morning I mean we're just showing this surge or resurgence is that maybe the fair way to talk about bitcoin I mean any particular reason why we're seeing such a dramatic turnaround in the currency at the moment . Sure I think late last year you saw kind of a you know a mania or over exuberance around where the eco system was at the price got kind of overbought in the market naturally corrected that in the last year or so. A lot of infrastructure has been built . We've added millions of users transaction volumes on a daily basis have tripled. And so I think a lot of the run up is attributable to a lot of the very positive effects that we've seen in the industry over the last six to 12 months. Let's talk about the technology because in many ways that's the essence of block chain isn't it. There is this proposition that the technology behind bitcoin is going to take off exponentially versus bitcoin and I'm just wondering where you stand in that debate given that you are so wholly committed at the moment as far as we know to to bitcoin. So just give me your perspective perspective on that yeah. So I'll start with the macro. From the company perspective and then kind of dig in at a high level you know blockheads the only major Bitcoin company to reach scale that hasn't participated in the price speculation at all . So we don't sell bitcoin as a consumer you can buy bitcoin to be ise. We purely built that open source software that makes the bitcoin ecosystem possible. Now on a specific technology level you know you have bitcoin which is really a protocols computer protocol. You know like it's Xi Jinping RTS IP. Then you have bitcoins which are the little tokens of value and then something that banks have started talking about lately is this idea of the blockade which is what our company is named after. And that's one of the fundamental ideas that makes bitcoin work . You just touched on that. I mean there was a McKinsey report and we wrote a story on it indeed about what the blocks and process or the technology can do in terms of potentially saving . You're looking at potentially increasing profits by 30 percent . Are you talking to any of the banks have you had conversations with any of the banks. Am I going to see your technology replicated in an investment bank. Am I going to see it in a retail bank in an app. What are the diversity that you're looking at as the CEO Yeah I think it's an incredible moment of opportunity. We probably engaged for every major bank in the Western Hemisphere . I think 2015 would have been a year that the industry including ourselves with a lot of infrastructure. I think 2016 will be the year of big partnerships. So I think you'll see a lot of big exciting partnerships both from US and other companies in the year 2016 with major financial institutions . Who are you close to signing a deal with. American European or British I think the banks in New York are probably at the forefront of adopting you know new and exciting technologies and right behind that is probably some of the banks in London. And would that be an investment bank and Wall Street or would that be a retail bank in the United States of America. Let's break news here . Who are you talking to the energy to deal with. Well you you should know better than most that kind of confidentiality agreement these partnerships operate under. So there any Dax . Do you think investment banks are more open to this technology investment. Investment banks are more open to embracing new technology than the return on day you know I'd say it's actually probably commercial banks and insurers we're also seeing a little bit of competition for funding. Are you raising any new funds any plans. Peter what's the appetite for far from the capital community to to vast more capital with you. Any plans. 2016 Yeah. So you know we're one of the few companies in the Bitcoin space that reached profitability before we raise capital. And then about 11 months ago we raise the largest single series in the industry. So we're incredibly well capitalized today . There's been a lot of interest over the last eleven months though. But I think we're going to we're going to hold out until we get a really strong partner for more of a strategic angle. And I think that'll probably be a 2016 issue. Peter one question I ask mostly using you have in your business the big on the small How much are you spending as a percentage of revenue on protecting us from hacking. Protecting your business from hacking. You know security engineering is one of the biggest parts of our engineering team. It's also you know one of the biggest challenges the company faces and so you know probably since we started this interview someone's tried to you know breach my personal e-mail account my work e-mail account know send me a phishing request. That's just something that you learn as an organization to combat. You know we pay some really fantastic internal researchers and we hire external firms on a very routine basis to try to penetrate our systems as well .