Palo Alto, California-based Bitcoin exchange Buttercoin has announced it will be closing on April 10th.
In the “Goodbye” announcement posted to their website a roughly a week in advance, they mentioned that they remained solvent and secure, but that they had failed to secure continued venture capitalist funding of the service.
It’s been a wonderful ride and we’re delighted to have created a service so many people enjoy. With the dip in bitcoin interest among Silicon Valley investors, we weren’t able to generate enough venture capital interest to continue funding Buttercoin.
We remain 100% secure & solvent with all customer funds accounted for.
The Technological press widely promoted Buttercoin. Notably, in August, 2013, TechCrunch wrote of Buttercoin:
With Bitcoin’s promise of frictionless transactions, particularly across international borders, it’s inevitable that a team would use the math-based currency to attack the global remittances market.
April 10th Final Date For Manual Withdrawals
The company wanted its customers to know that after the April 10th closing date, funds not already manually withdrawn would either be converted to dollars and sent to the last known funding bank account or sent directly that way if they were already in dollars.
The platform will be missed by its modest user base who sought an alternative to Coinbase and Bitstamp for the smooth acquisition of bitcoins. As to the “dip in interest,” this is a claim that CCN.com has yet to investigate fully, but certainly must be accepted at face value since the company obviously would have stayed in business had there been enough interest to retain funding.
P. H. Madore has written for CCN since 2014. Please send breaking news tips or requests for an investigation to [email protected]. He lives in Maine, USA. A single father of four young children, he does not discourage financial donations, provided they do not come with strings attached.
