Topic: Purse.io is shutting down (Read 993 times)

It died a hero by accepting money from Roger Ver to save it and clearly use it as a passive political attack tool? I reckon that it might also be continued to be used as a money laundering tool as mentioned by gmaxwell.

It appears that I might be correct on this.

It wasn't already?

I've heard from multiple people that underwent some pretty awkward contact from law enforcement after using purse.io early on. By all appearance its primary use was creating plausibly deniable laundering for identity thieves into cryptocurrency.

There have been other services that bridge Bitcoin to gift cards-- even ones without a bunch of altcoin shilling. But what they don't have is astronomical discounts like 20%, presumably that's because they aren't being powered by stolen funds.

The staff there engaged in some pretty reprehensible attacks against me personally-- and as a result I will never associate with anyone that has anything to do with them.

But... it sounds like a perfect match for Ver's business ethics.

If people are interested in doing something real, I'm confident that they would be better off in many other places.  If, instead, they want to put on a show and cycle through failed startup after failed startup then would be hard to beat.  You can think of what these companies and, more importantly, their investors is doing is fuzz testing the market.  You take some random people, you take some random business, you filter out some of the obvious crap and you see if it goes somewhere.  If it does, you gas it up and ride it to where it takes you-- if it doesn't, you let it die and try something else. The winners win big enough that they pay for all the losers and then some.

I've met people who've worked full time out here for over 20 years and worked for a dozen companies (what?) and never worked for a company that ever successfully shipped any kind of product. It's crazy. I can't imagine what that does to people's self esteem-- though I guess many just develop a blindness to how absurd it is.

There are, of course, also good people-- just from weather and environmental conditions, northern California is a pretty great place to live and so if you could pick anywhere in the world to live this would rank highly (which is part of how they can get away with relatively high taxes! ).  But hot shots here can make close to mid six figures working at Google. Most of the people your SF startup can easily hire ... aren't that.

I'm not too concerned either way. If Bitcoin users find value in it, I'm glad to see them pull through in some form.

Purse.io simply isn't that relevant anymore. BitPay's attacks -- publicly pushing for contentious hard forks, charging "network fees" and inaccurate mining fees and blaming small blocks for it, misleading messaging about fees in the BitPay/Copay wallets -- were a lot more concerning. Purse.io is a small fry compared to them. I see Roger Ver retaining value for BCH users more so than attacking Bitcoin with this.

Largely about maintaining an image I'll guess. All of these crypto companies secretly dream of being stumbled across by a Peter Thiel and being scooped up and they think SF is the place to be for it to happen. There's so much noise there you'd likely be better off in Idaho where a potato billionaire gets a boner for that thar tech stuff.

Tech talent, or investors with a lot of money to bet on risky businesses? Their business doesn't scream 'cutting edge rocket science' from a tech perspective*, they could have probably saved a lot of money by having most of their team working remotely from cheaper place(s).

*maybe they managed to develop some ingenious anti-fraud system few could come up with, I don't know, I'm skeptical

Several years ago, several purse.io customers were arrested after using their service. Most likely they were dealing in larger amounts, and with the same counerparty over time.

A lot of startups and tech companies are located in San Francisco because that is where a lot of talent is.

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It looks like they are going to put themselves up for sale instead of simply ceasing operations.

Reminds me of almost every other tech "unicorn" -- posting huge revenues every year, but not actually making profit, just so they can get on to bigger and bigger rounds of funding, from seed and Series A and whatever, all the way to IPO, looking at every point to sell for max profit. Or to just run everything into the ground while they sit on millions of salaries and bonuses.

He does have money to burn, gotta hand that to him.

It can be that and still be useful to people. That's probably what he would be counting on. He probably has a giant chart in his bedsit with 'use' and 'propaganda' written on it and he adjusts the ratio depending on how he feels that day.

I didn't realise how extensive the Amazon referrals thing would be. We're going to see lots of services change because of it.

Will purse.io transform into a scam political attack tool under Roger Ver's ownership or he should be cheered because he saved it?

I reckon this question might be on some bitcoiners' heads with no answer hehehe.

Probably some from Column A and some from Column B.

They have an office in high-rent San Francisco, with 17 employees. They last raised seed money in 2016. They have probably never turned much profit, and have now burned through their venture capital.

If the company were stripped down to the bare bones -- and with the added value Roger Ver will get from promoting BCH or his other ventures -- perhaps an acquisition makes sense. I don't know anyone else besides Roger Ver who has the money and unique incentives to make it worth it. I don't personally see much of a future for Purse.io, but I'm no business guru.

Oh, 100TB less crap uploaded to youtube each day and no more hundreds of useless reviews for each item?  
Also the death of blogs and reviews website that just read the specs of the product?
No more pushing crappy products just to earn a few cents on sales?

Clapping for Amazon on this one.


The service was going to close because it wasn't profitable for them anymore, probably they were losing money big time.
Roger Ver can do only two things, burn money to keep it running like it is in order to gain promotion for his other ventures or find a way to drastically reduce costs, nothing dramatically will change, if their way of earning is flawed you simply won't be making money out of it.

Sad news, I actually only saw the email in my inbox on Wednesday (why did they send it out so late to me I wonder, because I'm not American?) so coming late to this and catching up with things.

So Purse is not dead, but will be changing? And if it's Roger Ver, is Purse going to piss us off the way Bitpay seems to? Problem is, we'll still end up using it, the way I'm forced to use Bitpay because it's the only option for food delivery where I am!

@eaLiTy. I speculate what Roger might do is put a hidden promotion for bitcoin cash similar to Bitpay. Let users choose payment option between BTC and BCH then show their increased high fees for BTC and a 0 fee for BCH.

Now reports are coming out that Roger Ver is in talks with the purse team and i wont be surprised if they continue under a new team as there are several investors who are interested in taking over the company and now they might continue with the site rather than halting their functions.
If Roger Ver takes over the site then he will use it as a tool to promote his fork but i do not think he will remove BTCitcoin.

Here is the details :Roger Ver ‘In Talks’ with Purse.io for Acquisition

It appears that gentlemand might be correct. Their business model will change, however, the skeptical me thinks it will be used as a passive political attack tool for bitcoin cash, similar to what Bitpay has been doing.

In any case, this might be the reason Purse wanted to stop.



Amazon is planning to make dramatic cuts to commission rates for its affiliate marketing program, which allows media organizations, e-commerce companies, and small and independent businesses to receive a cut of revenue from a sale if a customer lands on the product page and purchases the item through a provided link.

Source https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/4/14/21221326/amazon-affiliate-marketing-links-commerce-commission-cuts

I tried to use them earlier, for once their logo popped up.   Im not sure what went wrong exactly but it wasn't zero hassle that I need it to be, it just hung and span saying it was doing something.  Meanwhile I just wanted to pay so who knows what it was, convenience is one of the most important things for anything consumer orientated.
    I know of a dozen methods to save money and when I tell people they sigh and just say they dont want the hassle, such a pity because the savings possible via various methods are not small in sum total.    This is also part of capitalism imo, people dont value money highest they value their own time as most valuable, so any route has to be easy to use always I'm sure of this.


Never underestimate the stupidity of your enemy, it can catch you off guard :p    but I agree strong bias is most likely, maybe a danger fee or a delay in clearance for using BTC.

Well, the situation seems to have changed ... https://support.purse.io/en/articles/3851246-purse-is-saying-goodbye

Roger is already a major shareholder in Purse.io.

I know, but I was saying what would make me happy in my care bear utopia, not how it's going to end.
I would love to see options to pay in BTC directly everywhere, directly! , no bitpay no coinpayments no nothing, I would even compromise with half usage half holding but I know how it will end up, probably like gold, traded 1000x times compared to the number of RL purchases and usage limited to pawn shops.


Been there, done that, avoided the punch, failed to see the kick, not doing it again. 

Staying? I think it's still many years away before it gets anywhere near that. The price might be dead for long stretches but that means the appetite for speculation has died, not that it's become a store of value.

If you suggested to the average person that it would be great idea to park that money they put aside for their life saving operation in BTC while it all gets lined up they'd rightly smack you in the mouth.