Withdraw your funds: Purse.io folds after 6 years in operation

In a message sent to its customers, Purse.io announced that it would cease operations on June 26, 2020. The California-based company allowed users to purchase products on Amazon by matching shoppers with people who want to exchange their Amazon gift cards at a discount for digital currency.  

To guarantee all transactions and accounts are settled, the company will continue to offer support for ongoing orders and withdrawals until then. A notice was posted to the company’s website by Customer Support Manager Eduardo Gómez instructing users who have a balance to withdraw all funds as soon as possible.

We've made the very difficult decision to dissolve the company. We're grateful for the opportunity afforded by our supporters to build products and services for the cryptocurrency community.

— Purse Media Group: Crypto Newsletter & Blog (@PurseIO) April 16, 2020

Purse.io has already disabled new sign-ups on its website. “Shop” and “Earn” functionality will end operations this week on April 23, 2020. They will cancel any open orders that have not been matched. 

The startup launched in 2014 and was surrounded by a lot of hype. It was one of the earlier companies that pushed for consumer-based adoption of digital currencies. Purse.io went on to raise $1.3 million total in venture capital funding over the past six years.  

The company’s co-founder and CEO, Andrew Lee, once said their mission is to, “Build awesome use cases that will drive mainstream bitcoin adoption. To do that, we also need to bridge the gap between ‘one-click shopping’ and shopping with bitcoin.”

Like some other companies in the digital currency space, Purse.io failed to keep pace with the original Bitcoin as hostile developers hijacked it. In 2019, the team found themselves in a bit of controversy after the tweeted ill-informed remarks about Bitcoin SV. Since then, BSV has proven itself to be the real Bitcoin with a growing ecosystem of users and skyrocketing transaction volumes.  

We strive to provide a safe, friendly experience for people new to crypto and experts alike.

We do not consider BSV safe to run or recommend to our customers.https://t.co/HzVNfXqSgy

— Purse Media Group: Crypto Newsletter & Blog (@PurseIO) March 16, 2019

No reason for the closure was given, but because of the BTC market downturn, one can assume Purse.io has had difficulty as of late growing its revenue while struggling to remain profitable. Although not referenced in the statement, the shutdown comes soon after Amazon announced cuts to the commission rates for its affiliates program.

Purse.io also used a team of open-source developers to maintain Bcoin, a full node, and wallet backend. Users of the product are advised to contact protocol developer Matt Zipkin for further information on the future of the project.

Per the statement, the decision to shut down was “difficult.” In this economic environment for most entrepreneurs, simply admitting the fact that shutting things down was an option is a hard process. Purse.io could no longer sustain its business model.