According to mathematician Meni Rosenfeld, Israel is a Bitcoin “forerunner.” With large numbers of users in the country, the number of startups and merchants continues to grow. Rosenfeld says: “I think the Bitcoin community in Israel is more coherent than in many other places in the world, which can be attributed to the small size of the country. Everyone is in driving distance from anyone else, so its much easier to breed communities that actually meet up and cooperate.” Among the list of Israel-based startups, Bits of Gold — in which Rosenfeld is an investor — GetGems and Polycoin lead …

Magma Venture Partners has invested a US$400,000 seed fund in GetGems, the project and team that created the social messaging app of the same name. CEO Daniel Peled and the GetGems team made the announcement on January 4. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Ran Achituv, a general partner with Magma VC, described his company as “an early-stage fund, founded in 1999 by Modi Rosen and Yahal Zilka,” focusing on “first-of-a-kind investments” by “identifying trends and shifts and disruptions as early as possible.” Achituv added that this was Magma VC’s first time investing in a cryptocurrency company, and that it was decided that …