The Bitcoin economy may be in some real trouble. After the announcement last week that e-payments service Paxum would no longer support Bitcoin clients, at least one major Bitcoin exchange has shut down. Chile-based TradeHill had been using Paxum, a PayPal competitor, for a large percentage of money transfers. The loss of Paxum, coupled with recent problems banking with Citibank that caused TradeHill to fall behind on processing transactions and other troubles, left the founders feeling like they had no choice but to suspend trading and return client deposits.
The founders just posted a letter on the TradeHill blog.
Dear Clients,
Effective immediately TradeHill will be shutting down trading / deposits and returning all client funds.
Due to increasing regulation TradeHill can not operate in it’s current capacity without proper money transmission licensing. Combined with multiple bank account closures and Paxum’s decision to close all Bitcoin business accounts, we have deemed the best course of action is to halt trading and pursue licensing while raising funds.
SEPA transfers for our Euro customers have been enabled.Everyone at TradeHill has also been working without pay for several months after one of our payment processors removed over $100,000 dollars from our account without notice. We decided to cover this loss for now instead of passing it on to our customers and are taking legal action against the processor. We would also like to make it known that our relationship with Paxum has been great and hope to work with them in the future.
We will be focusing on Bitcoin.com and are preparing to release a new site before the end of the month.
It has been a pleasure working with the Bitcoin community and look forward to continuing our business in the future. More details to come soon.Sincerely,
Jered Kenna
Chief Executive Officer
TradeHillPlease send all press inquires to: press@tradehill.com
Edit: We’ve received a lot of questions regarding donating your remaining balance to Bitcoin.com development. We’ve enabled a method to donate in all of the currencies and Bitcoin. 100% of these funds will go to Bitcoin.com development and keeping a community element present on the site. We have a great team lined up that we are preparing to announce and changes in the works to be released very soon. Thank you for all of your support.
Adrianne Jeffries is the editor of Betabeat. Follow Adrianne on Twitter or via RSS. ajeffries@observer.com
regulation invariably kills innovation and unfortunately, does not add the consumer value its intended to.
What idiot said that regulations were intended to add consumer value? Regulations exist solely for the purpose of limiting competition.
Really??? So after all this talking about bitcoin being the best thing invented so far, if the citi, bank of america, chase, etc. bank cartel close their window, theres no way of bitcoin to exist???????
The UK, where we Intersango.com is primarily based out of has been very positive towards bitcoin. It will always be in a few country’s advantage to use better technology for a cheaper means of commerce and a more competitive business tool. As for the US, we at Intersango.com have never had an issue with banking in the US and have a completely different structure then TradeHill.
If I want to deposit money interchanged from bitcoin in a account on Puerto Rico, could it be posible from Intersango?
People leaving Trade Hill should check out Intersango.com.
We are the second longest running exchange. The longest running
exchange not to be compromised. We have never suffered a hack and we are
the only bitcoin exchange owned and operated by core bitcoin
developers. We have the most competitive rates especially once
considering transfer costs to and from Intersango.com
We operate with honesty, and have absolutely no hidden fees.
We also have kick-ass support!
How am i suppose to get my btc i had with tradehill out of my account wtf!?
Just withdraw it. I’m not sure how they’ll handle USD, but you can still withdraw BTC the same as before.
Just withdraw it. I’m not sure how they’ll handle USD, but you can still withdraw BTC the same as before.
“The Bitcoin economy may be in some real trouble.”
Adrianne, I don’t get the logical jump between a single exchange shutting down and the entire Bitcoin economy being in trouble. Could you explain?
How about this little thing called history? When MtGox has suffered the exchange rate plummeted. In facteven when the Polish only exchange went down the price went down.
Currently around $4.50 Bitcoins are an excellant buy, better than gold or silver. The high of $30 last year may or may not be equalled in 2012 but BitCoins are way beyond the days when one wondered if they would ever equal the US dollar. All these silly bitcoin exchanges, some are fine, but alot are always getting hacked, leaving town, or manipulating trades. For a safe, easy, honest way to exchange your dollar/euro/etc currency for some BitCoins is: http://www.ExchangeVirtualCurrency.Com
The trick – deposit dollars, buy bitcoins, keep in account, or transfer to any bitcoin address. Set limit orders and profit on the volatile flux or buy and never sell and know you got the facebook or coke stock. And no, the govt. isnt going to shut it down!
http://www.ExchangeVirtualCurrency.Com
Currently around $4.50 Bitcoins are an excellant buy, better than gold or silver. The high of $30 last year may or may not be equalled in 2012 but BitCoins are way beyond the days when one wondered if they would ever equal the US dollar. All these silly bitcoin exchanges, some are fine, but alot are always getting hacked, leaving town, or manipulating trades. For a safe, easy, honest way to exchange your dollar/euro/etc currency for some BitCoins is: http://www.ExchangeVirtualCurrency.Com
The trick – deposit dollars, buy bitcoins, keep in account, or transfer to any bitcoin address. Set limit orders and profit on the volatile flux or buy and never sell and know you got the facebook or coke stock. And no, the govt. isnt going to shut it down!
http://www.ExchangeVirtualCurrency.Com