Circle Spanks Bitcoin with Account Restrictions, Bitcoin-Free Ads, and Limits

[MicroGuy]

As new rumors begin swirling about possible insider hanky panky at Bitpay, another giant in the industry is wreaking havoc on the Bitcoin community.

Circle Internet Financial, a Boston company specializing in global money transfers, has stopped mentioning Bitcoin in its advertising, put an end to instant ACH bitcoin purchases, and severely restricted the amount of BTC users can send and withdraw. Basically, it appears that Circle simply used the bitcoin community to jump-start another Venmo type venture and is now ready to move on to phase two of their master plan.

The following video was published yesterday and now headlines the company’s website. It contains no mention whatsoever of Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ojmQoesKS4

In addition to removing Bitcoin from its advertising, the company is also strongly encouraging all users to convert their balances to USD, and now forces a pop-up during login – with the option to stick with Bitcoin all but greyed out. And to add insult to injury, the company has disabled instant ACH purchases of bitcoin, and placed tight restrictions on the amount of bitcoin that can be sent during any given week.

Some community members are hot under the collar after discovering it will take weeks, and in some instances months, to move their stored bitcoins out of their Circle accounts.

Circle interestingly decided to make this move at a time when they had a cover story related to their new $5,000 Bitlicense, which is peanuts compared to the New York money transmitter license which they needed anyway to conduct their non-bitcoin related money sending activities.

Of course, many Bitcoin industry publications fell for the shell game – hook, line, and sinker – and wrote glowing articles about the Bitlicense achievement whilst ignoring the fact that Circle has just thrust a butcher’s knife squarely into the back of Satoshi and his digital-coin dreams.

Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2015/09/circle-spanks-bitcoin-with-account-restrictions-bitcoin-free-ads-and-sending-limits/

[fryarminer]

Disappointment.

Circle RIP.

[coinpr0n]

Welcome to the corporate takeover of Bitcoin. Looks like the party is over and no time to clean up before mom and dad get home!

[romjpn]

I will follow that closely.
For the moment it's still a good service to buy small amounts of bitcoins instantly with a CC.

[|Bitcoin|]

It is a big backstab! We the people of bitcoin nation cannot stay silent. We should immediately stop using their app until we receive good answer from their team. I can't stay behind this huge backstab.

[fryarminer]

I will follow that closely.
For the moment it's still a good service to buy small amounts of bitcoins instantly with a CC.

I've heard you can't buy BTC instantly with CC anymore. Just debit card. I don't care to use Circle to verify this however, I'm just walking away.
I'm sorry I ever gave a good review for them.

[Alley]

I just closed my circle account.  Very disappointing.  I'm using coinbase till Gemini launches.

[Meuh6879]

Bitcoin don't need corp.
Like all P2P network ... it work ALONE.

[PolarPoint]

I visited Circle's site minutes ago. There is no mention of bitcoin anywhere now. So, what will Circle become without bitcoin? Money transfer service like PayPal. That is a step backward. What a waste of their bitlicense.

[pedrog]

Who cares?

They are not the only player in town...

I visited Circle's site minutes ago. There is no mention of bitcoin anywhere now. So, what will Circle become without bitcoin? Money transfer service like PayPal. That is a step backward. What a waste of their bitlicense.

Go home, you're drunk.

[MicroGuy]

I visited Circle's site minutes ago. There is no mention of bitcoin anywhere now. So, what will Circle become without bitcoin? Money transfer service like PayPal. That is a step backward. What a waste of their bitlicense.

I think this was a business decision based at least partly on the fact that bitcoin core development has reached a standstill. It's pretty obvious to anyone that looks carefully that bitcoin is badly broken in terms of development innovation, adaptation, and growth.

Circle has too much invested to just sit around and wait for the core team to get their act together. We'll probably see a continued business exodus and overall market disintegration until the core team can find some agreement and direction.

[ArticMine]

I visited Circle's site minutes ago. There is no mention of bitcoin anywhere now. So, what will Circle become without bitcoin? Money transfer service like PayPal. That is a step backward. What a waste of their bitlicense.

I think this was a business decision based at least partly on the fact that bitcoin core development has reached a standstill. It's pretty obvious to anyone that looks carefully that bitcoin is badly broken in terms of development innovation, adaptation, and growth.

Circle has too much invested to just sit around and wait for the core team to get their act together. We'll probably see a continued business exodus and overall market disintegration until the core team can find some agreement and direction.

My take is that this is a direct result of the 1 MB blocksize limit. If Bitcoin cannot grow, while Circle wishes to grow as a company they have to do something.

[smoothie]

I agree that if it is because of the block size issue they do need to grow but they should give credit where credit is due.

If they are using bitcoin as the network to jump start their company and to facilitate money transfers they should say how they are doing it even in a general sense.

I watched the video and yup they are really trying to distance themselves from bitcoin.

Wow just wow...

[ArticMine]

I agree that if it is because of the block size issue they do need to grow but they should give credit where credit is due.

If they are using bitcoin as the network to jump start their company and to facilitate money transfers they should say how they are doing it even in a general sense.

I watched the video and yup they are really trying to distance themselves from bitcoin.

Wow just wow...

Unfortunatly this may be a sign of things to come. There is a chilling silence from Winklevoss twins and thier ETF for example. I have sold over 99% of my Bitcoins for a combination of Monero and Canadian Dollars, not because of fungibility, but because of the 1 MB blocksize issue. I understand where Circle is coming from.

Edit: The real problem is: How will Bitcoin develop a fee market once the emission runs out? This is the real reason why there has not been a solution to the blocksize issue.

[rychallenge]

And here we thought circle was our new saviour for USD to BTC.
Darn you circle

[chennan]

I just closed my circle account.  Very disappointing.  I'm using coinbase till Gemini launches.

I used coinbase a while back but recently stuck with using circle, because at the time, it was a very convenient way to sync my bank account info to the site and by bitcoins using my checking account.  Just as of now, I tried to buy a good bit of bitcoin and they gave me around 40% of my initial deposit in bitcoin and then told me to wait 4 business days so now I have to wait for the next week to get the rest of my bitcoins in.  It's just a very inconvenient way to purchase bitcoins, but I guess I'll have to use coinbase now to buy in the meantime, because of the fact that there is no one around me that uses localbitcoins for me to buy.

Circle definitely gave the bitcoin community the long hard shaft on this one.

[BurnRubber]

I've heard you can't buy BTC instantly with CC anymore. Just debit card. I don't care to use Circle to verify this however, I'm just walking away.
I'm sorry I ever gave a good review for them.

It has only ever been a U.S CC and debit card anyway. So many companies ride Bitcoin only to get off when they've captured a user base. Personally I think that's a mistake longterm, but short term a large amount of companies don't see profits and adoption as quickly as they (their investors) would have liked to. I think if they build it with Bitcoin in mind they can use Bitcoin/blockchain as a rail, and then bring it to the front/back of the dashboard as they please. I think many of these companies are underestimating the Bitcoin effect though.

Many people are loyal to a company just because the company did something for Bitcoin, take that away and then I think you might well get a house of cards situation.

[smoothie]

I agree that if it is because of the block size issue they do need to grow but they should give credit where credit is due.

If they are using bitcoin as the network to jump start their company and to facilitate money transfers they should say how they are doing it even in a general sense.

I watched the video and yup they are really trying to distance themselves from bitcoin.

Wow just wow...

Unfortunatly this may be a sign of things to come. There is a chilling silence from Winklevoss twins and thier ETF for example. I have sold over 99% of my Bitcoins for a combination of Monero and Canadian Dollars, not because of fungibility, but because of the 1 MB blocksize issue. I understand where Circle is coming from.

Edit: The real problem is: How will Bitcoin develop a fee market once the emission runs out? This is the real reason why there has not been a solution to the blocksize issue.

Good point. How can you have a fee market with no block reward?

[cjmoles]

Wow!  It looks likes it's beginning....the forces that be are leaning a little hard on the early adopters and they're back pedaling.  Circle has always seemed to be a little on the centralization and regulatory side of things...let the weak hands fall and it will open the doors for somebody else to provide the services.   

[subwoofer12]

Lol at the $300/week sell limits



But three weeks ago I could sell this much