<P> In November 2013, the University of Nicosia announced that it would be accepting bitcoin as payment for tuition fees, with the university's chief financial officer calling it the "gold of tomorrow". During November 2013, the China - based bitcoin exchange BTC China overtook the Japan - based Mt . Gox and the Europe - based Bitstamp to become the largest bitcoin trading exchange by trade volume . </P> <P> In December 2013, Overstock.com announced plans to accept bitcoin in the second half of 2014 . On 5 December 2013, the People's Bank of China prohibited Chinese financial institutions from using bitcoins . After the announcement, the value of bitcoins dropped, and Baidu no longer accepted bitcoins for certain services . Buying real - world goods with any virtual currency had been illegal in China since at least 2009 . </P> <P> In January 2014, Zynga announced it was testing bitcoin for purchasing in - game assets in seven of its games . That same month, The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino properties in downtown Las Vegas announced they would also begin accepting bitcoin, according to an article by USA Today . The article also stated the currency would be accepted in five locations, including the front desk and certain restaurants . The network rate exceeded 10 petahash / sec . TigerDirect and Overstock.com started accepting bitcoin . </P> <P> In early February 2014, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, Mt . Gox, suspended withdrawals citing technical issues . By the end of the month, Mt . Gox had filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan amid reports that 744,000 bitcoins had been stolen . Months before the filing, the popularity of Mt . Gox had waned as users experienced difficulties withdrawing funds . </P>

When did bitcoin come out and how much was it