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Title: Instawallet is shutting down (Update: not anymore, a new owner has been found) Post by: jav on March 02, 2012, 07:44:22 PM I have decided to shut down Instawallet for the time being. More details at www.instawallet.org . It was a great experience creating and running Instawallet, but at the moment I don't have the time and resources to continue to support the site. Thanks everyone for your support throughout the history of the project!
Full quote from the site: Quote Instawallet is shutting down. Please withdraw all your funds over the next days. The site will remain active until most funds have been withdrawn. Any remaining claims will then be dealt with manually. Please note: Some of Instawallet's funds are in cold storage. Depending on how quickly users are withdrawing, the site might occasionally run out of funds until I move more coins out of storage. Please do not panic in that case and just try again a few hours or a day later. All funds are completely accounted for and can be returned in full. A number of factors have come together for me to decide to shut down the site. The main reason though is that I currently do not have the time necessary to continue running the site and deal with issues properly. I have had people interested in buying the site in the past, so it might continue in a different form. (If you are interested in acquiring Instawallet feel free to get in touch with me.) I have not decided on that yet though. It was a great experience for me to provide this tool to the Bitcoin community over the past months and I have definitely learned a lot. It was a tough decision for me to make, but it will also allow me to focus on new projects. I'm looking forward to see how the Bitcoin ecosystem develops further. Thanks for all your support! Jan Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Jine on March 02, 2012, 07:52:33 PM Interested in selling the customers/site/system? Contact me via e-mail / PM.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Yankee (BitInstant) on March 02, 2012, 08:03:57 PM We are sorry to see such a pioneer in the Bitcoin industry go!
We are interested as well in hearing more about your company. A quick and easy buyout, merge, or takeover is possible as we have the worldwide infrastructure to do it! Get in touch! Charlie Shrem, CEO BitInstant Time is Money! charlie@bitinstant.com NYC, United Kingdom, Japan. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: bitstarter on March 02, 2012, 08:08:59 PM Sorry to hear this :/
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Stephen Gornick on March 02, 2012, 08:11:38 PM Thank you Jav for having created the concept of an anonymous online instant e-wallet service.
I am reminded of the utility of InstaWallet each time I want to hand out a small, sample amount of bitcoins to someone who I wouldn't expect would install the Bitcoin client or to immediately create an account at an exchange. The service will be missed. I do see that there is a similar service now available. Their "Instant Bucket" is pretty similar in functionality to an InstaWallet: - https://www.btcbuckets.com Some of these wallets are held by those who won't learn of this shutdown notice. Without any way to notify them, some will lose their coins. Even though the site mentioned recommended usage was only for "small change", I suspect there are some InstaWallets that hold significant amounts. Would there be some way for wallets (maybe just those over a certain amount) be claimable for an extended period of time? Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: jav on March 02, 2012, 08:16:03 PM Some of these wallets are held by those who won't learn of this shutdown notice. Without any way to notify them, some will lose their coins. Would there be some way for wallets (maybe just those over a certain amount) be claimable for an extended period of time? Definitely. At the very least people will always be able to get in touch with me via e-mail and by providing the Instawallet link and a return address I will sent them their funds. I will give it a few weeks to see for how many remaining accounts this will be necessary. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Phinnaeus Gage on March 02, 2012, 08:19:57 PM I've just donated my remaining balance of .58584966 BTC on Instawallet to Bitcoin 100. Here is the donation address for those who may also have bitcents still on deposit there and want to contribute: 1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac
The goal is to make Rassah earn his keep by now having to record, hopefully, a slew of transactions. Thank you kindly for considering this option. ~Bruno~ https://www.instawallet.org/static/notice.html?v=ecc06 Quote A number of factors have come together for me to decide to shut down the site. The main reason though is that I currently do not have the time necessary to continue running the site and deal with issues properly. I have had people interested in buying the site in the past, so it might continue in a different form. (If you are interested in acquiring Instawallet feel free to get in touch with me.) I have not decided on that yet though. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: D.H. on March 02, 2012, 09:14:15 PM Thanks Jan for creating Instawallet! It's a great concept and a great way to quickly introduce people to Bitcoin. Hope that it will live on in some form.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Alphonso Bedoya on March 02, 2012, 09:22:57 PM Sorry to hear it. Thanks very much for your excellent work. Peace.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: hazek on March 02, 2012, 10:53:06 PM EDIT: nvm works now
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: bbit on March 02, 2012, 10:54:34 PM How long should it take for bitcoins to leave instawallet? I moved some bitcoins from a few instawallet address's ....
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: jav on March 02, 2012, 11:17:45 PM How long should it take for bitcoins to leave instawallet? I moved some bitcoins from a few instawallet address's .... With the large of number of transactions at the moment, it might take several hours if not up to a day (for the transactions to confirm). Please just give it some time, it will reach you eventually. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: bbit on March 03, 2012, 12:54:46 AM Nevermind they came over nicely :)
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: teflone on March 03, 2012, 01:14:32 AM WTF!!! :-[
I really liked instawallet.. how the hell can this happen ? Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: SgtSpike on March 03, 2012, 01:28:58 AM Someone please buy this and keep it running...!
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: FreeMoney on March 03, 2012, 08:46:57 AM Googling "instawallet clone" gives seemingly full instructions. Someone really should do this. If it is a reputable person I can promise some advertising money from Seals.
I've been using instawallet to show new players at Seals how Bitcoin works. I think it will make them more comfortable buying coins to play with. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: trout on March 03, 2012, 08:55:30 AM has there been an attempt to wash some of the recently stolen money using instawallet?
I'd guess this might be one of the reasons for it to close. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Jine on March 05, 2012, 09:19:52 AM We've been in discussion with jav regarding buying the site, and we will unfortunately not go through with it.
I hope someone else steps up and have the money to invest in it. -- Regards, Jim Bit LC Inc. https://www.bitlc.net Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: ribuck on March 05, 2012, 10:39:54 AM Maybe Instawallet needs to be operated by an autonomous agent (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60198) rather than a human.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: SgtSpike on March 05, 2012, 04:16:55 PM I kind of hate to bring this up, but given that jav gets to keep all the coins that go unclaimed.... well, I'd call that pretty big incentive to shut it down.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: D.H. on March 05, 2012, 04:31:15 PM I kind of hate to bring this up, but given that jav gets to keep all the coins that go unclaimed.... well, I'd call that pretty big incentive to shut it down. I seriously don't see the point of this post. Do you believe that that's why he is shutting down? If he feels that he doesn't have time to run it there is really nothing else to do than what he did. Everyone can get their funds back, he will handle requests manually after the site has been shut down. He also told people to get in touch if they wanted to acquire it. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: Aggro on March 05, 2012, 05:17:18 PM Someone please buy this and keep it running...! We are in negotiations with Jav to try to buy the site, and keep it running free as it is right now. We have made our offer, and waiting for a resolution. We would like to offer this service through our company free of charge for the community. Hopefully we will reach an agreement. If not, I have my technical people analyzing how long would it take to implement this by ourselves. It seems having a convenient wallet service like this is pivotal for Bitcoin newcomers and Bitcoin evangelization in general. We are willing to do our part to help! Roberto Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: SgtSpike on March 05, 2012, 05:45:02 PM I kind of hate to bring this up, but given that jav gets to keep all the coins that go unclaimed.... well, I'd call that pretty big incentive to shut it down. I seriously don't see the point of this post. Do you believe that that's why he is shutting down? If he feels that he doesn't have time to run it there is really nothing else to do than what he did. Everyone can get their funds back, he will handle requests manually after the site has been shut down. He also told people to get in touch if they wanted to acquire it. Yes, you are right - everyone can get their funds back so long as they know who to contact, they contact them within a certain amount of time, etc. What about those who forgot about the handful of BTC they left on instawallet, and stumble across their address 3 months from now? Sure, you could say they deserved to lose it, but that doesn't change the fact that there IS incentive for jav to shut it down. I hope I am proven wrong, that someone does come along and buy the site (or that jav decides to keep it going until the right buyer comes along). But even if I had the money, it'd be hard for me to cough up the asking price for a site that doesn't have any method of generating revenue. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: pc on March 05, 2012, 06:28:48 PM Seems that the concept of InstaWallet is really similar to the deterministic-wallet kind of concept. Could instawallet take the unique part of the URL, hash it to make a private key, and send the funds to the corresponding address? Then, any site at all would be able to take over and use the same model, to show the balance of the address associated with the hash of the unique URL part and create the transactions to spend them. There could be competing instawallet services that are compatible (though I don't know how desirable that would be), but by storing the funds "in the blockchain" rather than with a particular provider, one wouldn't be dependent on one particular service staying open forever. (Though of course any provider with whom you've checked on your balance would be able to take your money, but that's not really any different than it is today.) Don't know if I'm expressing this well, but if I had more time I would put together a site that did this and probably open-source it.
Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: btc_artist on March 05, 2012, 06:44:32 PM Someone please buy this and keep it running...! A couple people have offered.I kind of hate to bring this up, but given that jav gets to keep all the coins that go unclaimed.... well, I'd call that pretty big incentive to shut it down. TBH, I kinda think that's uncalled for. I think he mentioned he'd honor people's claims even after it's shut down.We've been in discussion with jav regarding buying the site, and we will unfortunately not go through with it. What is the general price range he's looking for?I hope someone else steps up and have the money to invest in it. -- Regards, Jim Bit LC Inc. https://www.bitlc.net Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down - please withdraw your funds Post by: D.H. on March 05, 2012, 07:00:56 PM Yes, you are right - everyone can get their funds back so long as they know who to contact, they contact them within a certain amount of time, etc. What about those who forgot about the handful of BTC they left on instawallet, and stumble across their address 3 months from now? Sure, you could say they deserved to lose it, but that doesn't change the fact that there IS incentive for jav to shut it down. My interpretation is that the service is closing down when most funds have been withdrawn. I would certainly expect a static page with contact information to be there for at least 3 months. I do not think that people deserve to lose their money for not visiting the site for 3 months. Quote But even if I had the money, it'd be hard for me to cough up the asking price for a site that doesn't have any method of generating revenue. If the site has a lot of users I'm sure there are ways to generate revenue. Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down (Update: not anymore, a new owner has been found) Post by: jav on March 06, 2012, 05:07:50 PM Hey there!
Thanks everyone for all the interest in the site. It's great to see people valuing the service! I'm happy to announce that I found a great team of people to take over the site. The fine folks at bitcoin-central.net (http://bitcoin-central.net) will be running Instawallet starting from next Monday. More details in the announcement thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67602.0 . Title: Re: Instawallet is shutting down (Update: not anymore, a new owner has been found) Post by: SgtSpike on March 06, 2012, 05:52:28 PM Glad to hear it jav!
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