Bitstamp Wins Best Virtual Currency Startup Award at The Europas

Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp was named the Best Virtual Currency Startup at the 2014 Europas last night.

Held in the Old Billingsgate venue on the bank of London's River Thames, the event was attended by the top startup companies currently involved in the European tech scene.

Bitstamp beat stiff competition from Coinfloor, Elliptic, GoCoin, Localbitcoins and Safello to claim the Best Virtual Currency Startup award.

Nejc Kodric, CEO of Bitstamp and CTO Damijan Merlak collected the trophy, which was presented by Firestartr's Cécile Baird.

.@Bitstamp collect the award for 'Best Virtual Currency Startup' at #TheEuropas pic.twitter.com/GYlipNqSVZ

— CoinDesk (@coindesk) June 10, 2014

Bitstamp, which is based in Slovenia and has a presence in the UK, is one of the world’s most popular bitcoin exchanges. It recently underwent its second proof of reserves procedure, which was overseen by BitcoinJ developer Mike Hearn.

Kodric said: "Day by day, in every way, bitcoin is winning. Bitstamp got the Europas award this year, someone else will get it the next year. As long as bitcoin continues to thrive, we all win."

This was Kodric and Merlak's first time at the Europas, which was founded in 2009 by Mike Butcher, editor at large of TechCrunch. The panel of judges who decided on the night's winners included Ben Holmes, of Index Ventures; Olivia Solon, associate editor of Wired.co.uk; Kathryn Parsons, founder of Decoded and Eze Vidra, head of Google for Entrepreneurs Europe and Campus London.

Click below to see a gallery of pictures from the event.

Other winners at the event included:

Best Entertainment or Media Startup - Soundcloud

Best E-Commerce Startup - FoodPanda SLASH Hellofood

Best Education Startup - Babbel

Best Startup Accelerator or Incubator - Startupbootcamp

Best Advertising Marketing Startup - Brainient

Best Gaming or Social Games Startup - Supercell

Best Social Mobile Startup - EyeEm

Best FinTech Startup - GoCardless

Best Enterprise, Software as a Service or B2B Startup - DataSift

Best Hardware Startup - Petcube

Best Sharing or Crowd Sourcing Economy Startup - BlaBlaCar

Best Health Startup - Big Health with Sleep.io

Best Security or Privacy Startup - ZenMate

Best Travel or Transport Startup - Hailo

Best Internet of Things Startup - Evrythng

Coolest Technology Innovation - Swiftkey

Best Fashion Startup - FarFetch

Best Angel or Seed Investor of the Year - Xavier Niel & Jeremie Berrebi of Kima Ventures

Greatest Tech Influence On Society - CodeClub

Best VC Investor of the Year - Index Ventures

Best Startup Founder or Co-founders - Peter Arvai, Péter Halácsy and Ádám Somlai-Fischer from Prezi

Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year - Telegram

The Europas Grand Prix Award - Swiftkey

Images via CoinDesk