Former bitcoin companies are erasing their embarrassing 'bit's - The Guardian

[tokeweed]

These Bitcoin companies may be weighing their options...  What do you guys think?

We’ve all been there: sometimes you start a company, run it successfully for a few years, and then realise you hitched your horse to a slowly dying technology and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So spare a thought for the companies scrabbling to jump off the bitcoin ship before it sinks. The currency’s value has been static for months (except for a brief boom and bust in early November when it was caught up in a Chinese ponzi scheme), but perhaps more damningly still, the hype has all but disappeared.

Some of the former bitcoin companies, like Circle and BitPay, have quietly realigned themselves from “bitcoin” to the more general concept of “the blockchain”, the technological concept at the heart of the cryptocurrency.

Others, however, have been a bit more brazen. Bitreserve, which used to be a bitcoin wallet and exchange, has rebranded itself as “Uphold”, and is now firmly trying to shove its history down the memory hole.

Chief executive Anthony Watson gave Business Insider a … curious explanation for his company’s old name: “When we say bit, we don’t mean bitcoin, we never did. We meant bit as is bits and bytes and reserve is obviously holding the value. But people are confused, they think we’re just a bitcoin company and it makes sense as our first use case was bitcoin.”

It’s certainly bold spin. It reminds us of Microsoft’s bizarre attempt back in the 00s to erase the iPod from the history of podcasting: “the term podcast is a combination of pod (Portable On Demand) and broadcast,” the company explained.

That one didn’t stick, either.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/23/former-bitcoin-companies-cryptocurrency

[silverleafy]

I'm calling BS on this one. The article claims that Bitcoin is a dying technology... except the blockchain is the technology, which everyone is jumping onto. Bitcoin and the blockchain are the same thing, they cannot exist without each other. I have not seen any company that is trying to distance itself from Bitcoin, except for bitreserve.

[franky1]

bitreserve, still handles bitcoin, nothing has changed. they just rebranded to appear less "techy special secret money" to appeal more to what the common man understands..
bitcoin is still at the heart of their business,

its just. if you want wall street fiat lovers to hand over their fiat. obsessing over bitcoin can actually be a bad sales pitch.. instead showing you easily accept and handle fiat, offering a secure and deflationary reserve (bitcoin). will get more people to hand over their fiat and grab bitcoin.

its like mcdonalds changing from the creepy clown, to the celebrity who shouts "ba da ba ba ba" when eating a big mac... they still sell bigmacs they just got rid of the weirdness and appealed to something people will recognise. even without changing any of the ingrediants of their main product.

take any product that has been around for 50 years.. they all rebranded maybe 10-15 times.. yet the ingrediants/materials havnt changed

[Carlton Banks]

The last prominent Bitcoin story at guardian.com was called something like "Where we help Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen promote their BloatChain". Funny how times have changed. 

[maokoto]

Sadly, it is as if the media wanted to put Bitcoin down. Almost always they speak about it in negative terms or as a dying technology. I do not want to speak about conspiracy theories, but it looks like they were paid to speak negative things about Bitcoin.

I mean the more generalistic media. The more techy-Bitcoin related media provide good news every now and then.

[CoinBateman]

Circle have moved away from Bitcoin remittance even though that is their roots. Blockchain is the new fad, not bitcoin.

[mirana12345]

I wouldn't take this article from guardian too seriously; he's even writing about how bitcoin is fading and price jumped only with that ponzi that pumped it up a bit - but doesn't
even mention that the price actually rose from ~240 to ~500 all by positive news, and not ponzis and alike.
The guy want's to sell the story - nothing more, and he's failing to do so even lol.

[lumeire]

Circle have moved away from Bitcoin remittance even though that is their roots. Blockchain is the new fad, not bitcoin.

Yet they fail to realize that as long as the blockchain exist bitcoin will still be here and will not cease to flourish. I suppose we're going to the days when bitcoin, mining, and getting the blockchain moving is behind the scenes covered by BlockChain apps.

And since they're turning their back on bitcoin, we should turn our back on them too. It's simple.

[Kakmakr]

These businesses are avoiding Bitcoin like it has the plaque. In the boom days, everything was about Bitcoin, now they ignore that history, like Kim Kardashian is ignoring the sex tape she made, back in the days. The thing is, they cannot ignore their roots and it all started with Bitcoin.

Watch them come around when the price goes up again and Bitcoin goes mainstream. Let's just hope we remember them then, when they want our money.

[franky1]

These businesses are avoiding Bitcoin like it has the plaque. In the boom days, everything was about Bitcoin, now they ignore that history, like Kim Kardashian is ignoring the sex tape she made, back in the days. The thing is, they cannot ignore their roots and it all started with Bitcoin.

Watch them come around when the price goes up again and Bitcoin goes mainstream. Let's just hope we remember them then, when they want our money.

seems you have made an opinion based on the media's story.. but without fact checking it..

so here is a 3 second test of facts

https://www.circle.com/

do you see the word bitcoin, right in the center of the page in the sentance of "Instant. Secure. No Fees. Send & Receive Money Anywhere with Bitcoin "

yes? then i guess circle isnt cowering away from bitcoin.

what the media are forgetting and misinterpreting.. is this:

people used to call the technology(protocol that makes blocks and distributed) of bitcoin............ bitcoin. or virtual currency or cryptocurrency.

now they are calling the technology 'blockchain'

purely to separate the terminology and the confusion between the currency unit vs the technology.


here is another example:
what do you see?
and how many times a week do you eat it?


most peoples instant reaction is "beans" and "7 times a week".
but the correct answer is "a picture of a tin of baked beans" and "never, i dont eat the metal container"

so baked beans have not changed, the ingredients are the same. people still eat them, but the terminology of what your talking about has changed. purely to make more sense to common folk.

[Blue_Tiger73]

I'm calling BS on this one. The article claims that Bitcoin is a dying technology... except the blockchain is the technology, which everyone is jumping onto. Bitcoin and the blockchain are the same thing, they cannot exist without each other. I have not seen any company that is trying to distance itself from Bitcoin, except for bitreserve.

Bitcoin is definitely new and I don't think that it is going to die out anytime soon. Bitcoin is new and a revolutionary technology. Bitcoin is still trying to make its mark on society. The price is still stabilising and I think in a couple of years, Bitcoin will be a big thing.

[franky1]

Bitcoin is definitely new and I don't think that it is going to die out anytime soon. Bitcoin is new and a revolutionary technology. Bitcoin is still trying to make its mark on society. The price is still stabilising and I think in a couple of years, Bitcoin will be a big thing.

nooooo
bitcoin is a currency. blockchain is the technology..

and thats why media are getting so confused. because people are starting to actually use terminology that helps explain things better. by separating the technology buzzword away from the currency. wrongly making media suddenly think the currency is dying.. when in fact its just a clarification of wording

[InvoKing]

Seems that the journalists these days got bored...too shitty bitcoin science-fiction stories or something random like this 
Anyway in a manner or another they are helping bitcoin to get more attention and more users for free 

[aso118]

Bitcoin is definitely new and I don't think that it is going to die out anytime soon. Bitcoin is new and a revolutionary technology. Bitcoin is still trying to make its mark on society. The price is still stabilising and I think in a couple of years, Bitcoin will be a big thing.

nooooo
bitcoin is a currency. blockchain is the technology..

and thats why media are getting so confused. because people are starting to actually use terminology that helps explain things better. by separating the technology buzzword away from the currency. wrongly making media suddenly think the currency is dying.. when in fact its just a clarification of wording

To add to that, the recent price stability of bitcoin is given as 'evidence' that it is dying.
They don't realize that stability in price could solve one of the biggest problems of Bitcoin. 

[sartorpc]

These Bitcoin companies may be weighing their options...  What do you guys think?

We’ve all been there: sometimes you start a company, run it successfully for a few years, and then realise you hitched your horse to a slowly dying technology and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So spare a thought for the companies scrabbling to jump off the bitcoin ship before it sinks. The currency’s value has been static for months (except for a brief boom and bust in early November when it was caught up in a Chinese ponzi scheme), but perhaps more damningly still, the hype has all but disappeared.

Some of the former bitcoin companies, like Circle and BitPay, have quietly realigned themselves from “bitcoin” to the more general concept of “the blockchain”, the technological concept at the heart of the cryptocurrency.

Others, however, have been a bit more brazen. Bitreserve, which used to be a bitcoin wallet and exchange, has rebranded itself as “Uphold”, and is now firmly trying to shove its history down the memory hole.

Chief executive Anthony Watson gave Business Insider a … curious explanation for his company’s old name: “When we say bit, we don’t mean bitcoin, we never did. We meant bit as is bits and bytes and reserve is obviously holding the value. But people are confused, they think we’re just a bitcoin company and it makes sense as our first use case was bitcoin.”

It’s certainly bold spin. It reminds us of Microsoft’s bizarre attempt back in the 00s to erase the iPod from the history of podcasting: “the term podcast is a combination of pod (Portable On Demand) and broadcast,” the company explained.

That one didn’t stick, either.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/23/former-bitcoin-companies-cryptocurrency

I can't take this seriously, bitcoin slowly dying? sounds like a joke to me, so my reply is these guys don't know what they are talking about.

[tiggytomb]

Not that much of a fan of this article, bitcoin is hardly a dying technology, the price has been static for months and this is a bad thing? I would think it is a good thing to have a stable price and then over time if it rises it is a natural rise.

bitcoin might not be at the forefront of all the attention right now like the blockchain is but bitcoin the currency is still there and still carrying itself well even amidst all the negative spin such as links to terrorism and so on.

These companies are not hanging their head in shame either, they are still bitcoin friendly but are adapting to the current climate with their focus.

[coinpr0n]

Wow, what a FUDdy article. Sure, it's true some companies are pivoting away from offering purely Bitcoin-centric products but to call that jumping from a sinking ship is total BS. Those companies are not Bitcoin.

[Fesatmas]

I'm calling BS on this one. The article claims that Bitcoin is a dying technology... except the blockchain is the technology, which everyone is jumping onto. Bitcoin and the blockchain are the same thing, they cannot exist without each other. I have not seen any company that is trying to distance itself from Bitcoin, except for bitreserve.

The bitcoin usage is not popular, these companies cannot live on bitcoin service. It is reasonable for them to shift their centre of service.

[Denker]

This is old news already what the guardian is publishing now. Thay are bit late it seems.
Several other newspapers and magazines published this days ago.
And I don't really care that much or believe it will matter that these companies turn their back to bitcoin.
If you're not innovative enough in techinically new fields you faile.That's how it goes. Now they just try to suck up more VC capital with the blockchain hype before they collapse.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

The banking industry is suicidal about Bitcoin disrupting their status quo ponzi scheme and want to make Bitcoin as irrelevnat as possible. To bad that a blockchain without Bitcoin is as stupid as a car without wheels. They are just dealing with it the only way they can: by pretending it's not happening, but when they realize it's happening it will be too late.