With the price of bitcoin continuing to crater, Silicon Valley-based crypto-mining outfit PeerNova has raised $8.6 million in funding to refocus its business on blockchain-based enterprise products. Bitcoin valuations are currently hovering dangerously near the sub-$300 mark, raising doubts about the long-term viability of the asset as an alternative currency. The heavily-hyped crypto-currency has descended from a bubble-high of $1000+ in December 2013, making it possibly the worst investment of 2014 across a range of comparable asset classes. With this in mind, bitcoin startups and VCs backing the currency are turning their attention to the distributed ledger blockchain technology underpinning bitcoin as a safer investment bet. It enables new classes of secure financial asset transfer and asset registry applications that do not need trusted third parties and intermediaries, thereby reducing transaction costs significantly.

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