ShapeShift

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ShapeShift
250px
Web address shapeshift.io
Type of site
 Private
Created by Erik Voorhees[1]
Launched 2013; 11 years ago (2013)
Alexa rank
 Decrease 39,137 (May 2018)[2]

ShapeShift is a company that offers global trading of a variety of digital assets via web and mobile platforms. It is headquartered in Switzerland, but run out of Denver.[1]

The company does not collect personal data on its customers and exchanges one cryptocurrency for another without ever collecting customer funds into company accounts,[3] which is unique among digital currency trading companies.[4] However, the company will begin requiring such information as of October 1, 2018.[1]

If an exchange fails (by fault of user or company) and the user does not make a refund claim within 90 days, the company will keep all assets.[5]

History

The company was founded in 2013 in Switzerland by Erik Voorhees. In March 2015, it received a US$525,000 seed-stage investment by Roger Ver and Barry Silbert.[6] Additional funding totaling US$1.6 million had been provided by September 2015, from investors in a second funding round including Digital Currency Group, Bitfinex, Bitcoin Capital and Mardal Investments.[4][7][8] In March 2017, ShapeShift has raised $10.4 mln in a series A round led by European venture capital firm Earlybird.[9]

ShapeShift released initially on the iOS platform in June 2015, initially allowing users to swap 25 digital currencies and value tokens.[10] As of September 2015, there were over 40 different digital currencies available for trade, providing "940 trading pairs, ... greater than any single exchange on the market."[4]

On 11 June 2015, ShapeShift "cut off service to New York in response to the state’s new regulatory policy for digital currency businesses, ... BitLicense," which was released in June with the final regulations approved in August.[11][12][13] The company stated that if they had complied with the New York BitLicense regulations, then significant personal and private data would also have been in the hands of the hacker.[3]

Since March till April 2016 Shapeshift experienced a total of 3 attacks which resulted in 469 BTC, 1900 LTC and 5800 ETH stolen from their hot wallets. As a result, the Shapeshift team put Shapeshift.io offline till April 20 to rebuild Shapeshift's infrastructure with enhanced security protocols.[14]

In October 2017, ShapeShift partnered with Civic to deliver a secure user access experience for Prism platform users.[15]

A 2018 investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that ShapeShift had processed $9 million in funds from criminal activities over a two-year period.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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