BTCinch shutting down

[bearbones]

Howdy folks,

I regret to report that BTCinch will be closing its doors. It has been fun, but there are too many legal and organizational barriers to continue on as is.

User registration has been suspended, and I'm in the process of disabling deposits. It is surprisingly tough, considering how Bitcoin transactions work. For now, you may still log in and send outgoing transactions. Tomorrow, however, we'll be transferring all funds to a new wallet for final distribution and turning off the BTCinch transaction server. In the meanwhile, outgoing transactions will continue to be processed. Feel free to log in and withdraw any funds on deposit.

Merchants
For the immediate future (2 weeks), the BTCinch payment gateway will continue to operate with a different transaction server. Withdrawals and conversions will continue to process as usual. By the end of the month, however, I will have replacement plugins for every cart that BTCinch supported. I will be happy to assist the new plugin installation in any way possible.

While BTCinch has lived out its useful lifespan, I am by no means getting out of the Bitcoin game. Quite the opposite. This is, for me, an opportunity to start fresh with more market perspective. In short, do not take this as a judgement on Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is stronger than ever, and so your confidence should be.

Sincerely,
Ira Miller

P.S. I'm fielding a ton of emails, skype PMs and calls single handedly. I'll keep an eye on this thread and answer any questions, but maybe not right away.

[bbit]

Ira,

Sorry to hear this    are you still going to remain in the Bitcoin community though?

[bearbones]

Ira,

Sorry to hear this    are you still going to remain in the Bitcoin community though?

I am absolutely going to remain in the Bitcoin community, thank you for asking.

[chsados]

this sucks!  i was planning on using you guys in the coming months.  may i ask what specific hurdles you ran into in regards to legal issues?

[bearbones]

this sucks!  i was planning on using you guys in the coming months.  may i ask what specific hurdles you ran into in regards to legal issues?

Some aspects of the business potentially (probably) fell under money services, which means we would have had to acquire MSB licenses for each state. There are ways around it, but BTCinch wasn't well positioned to take advantage of them.

[tvbcof]

I was mildly suspicious of BTCinch for some reason(s) that I cannot recall.  It is nice to see that my suspicions appear to have been misplaced.