Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
February 20, 2019 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- This week began
a private beta testing phase of the new Shapeshift exchange
platform. Over the past several months, the company’s achievements
have been overshadowed news of government probing and employee
layoffs. CEO Eric Voorhes announced the company’s rebrand at the
EthDenver Conference this past weekend while speaking on a panel
this about leadership “in times of ambiguity” with co-founder of
cryptocurrency micropayments service Earn.com Lily Liu, CSO of
ethereum venture capital studio ConsenSys Sam Cassatt, and
co-founder of decentralized application platform Holochain Arthur
Brock
Shifting
ShapeShift.io
Late last year, Shapeshift.io was
force to drastically alter the model of their exchange platform.
The goal was to provide a way for cryptocurrency users to be able
to exchange their coins without having to deposit them onto a
centralized exchange, while providing strong liquidity through
sourcing prices from many exchanges, rather than just their own.
However, the company receive strong criticism from U.S. government
regulators who claimed that ShapeShift could be held at fault for
illicit use of cryptocurrencies, because their platform did not
require any KYC process.
“I felt like I had to do something
morally wrong to allow the company to persist…It’s a really awful
position to be in,” said Voorhees.
ShapeShift now requires users to
make an account and verify their identity to make exchanges. And
the company still highlights an important niche in the competitive
exchange market. Users are given the ability to trade any digital
asset easily without waiting for deposit confirmations and putting
up bid orders. Other companies, such as Overstock.com, are plugging
into the ShapeShift APIs, so all of their users are potentially
introduced to cryptocurrencies.
Roots In
Crypto-Freedom
The exchange was founded in 2013 in
Switzerland, funded by $525,000 seed-stage investment. Additional
funding of $1.6 million came in September 2015 from investors
including Digital Currency Group, Bitfinex, Bitcoin Capital and
Mardal Investments. In March 2017, another $10.4 million was raised
in a round led by the European venture capital firm
Earlybird.
“Society is comfortable about this
idea that people should be able to talk freely with each other …
the fact that money is treated differently is a huge injustice. I
hope that crypto breaks that discrepancy.” - Erik
Voorhes
CEO and founder Eric Voorhes
believes the current monetary system has serious systemic problems,
and advocates the separation of money and state. He has been in the
cryptocurrency world since 2011. He was the founder and former CEO
of Coinapult, a system that allowed transfers of bitcoin via SMS
and email. He is a true visionary of decentralized currencies to
revolutionize the monetary system.
By: BGN Editorial Staff