Buttercoin will go offline on April 10th 11PM pacific time, the company said on their website. They also advised their customers to move their bitcoins to another service by the 10th of April. The accounts that are unclaimed will be returned to the accounts from which they came from.
The company said that they are shutting down because they are unable to get funding. Buttercoin was launched in 2013, their objective was to tackle the global remittance space i-e the money which migrant workers send their relatives back home. This was supposed to be a big opportunity as the World Bank estimated that an amount of $515 billion will be sent in different countries in 2015.
Buttercoin was a little ambitious with their strategy, their goal was to open up local exchanges in many countries so that they could facilitate cross border currency transfer at a cheaper rate.
In total, Buttercoin raised about $1.6 million from investors; this includes Google, Reddit, Floodgate, Initialized Capital, Rothenburg Ventures and Centralway. This was an early stage investment fund.
Even with these financial powerhouses on their back, investors are not eager to invest in bitcoin. Beyond the valuation of the cryptocurrency, which was found to be more stable this year, there is a rise in Coinbase, Bitpay and some others – they have gathered millions of dollars from big clients and investors. The chance of smaller players making it big in this market is small, even if these smaller players are backed up by reputed investors.