I think that he did make some comments on twitter, and it really was giving off a feeling that he was definitely pressured into doing this. -- Either by Feds or investors in his company. It's a shame though, since Shapeshift is a pretty useful service.
When he's asked whether or not he's forced to implement it, his response is this.
Not appropriate to discuss on Twitter.
Sounds like someone is definitely forcing his hand. Whether it be law enforcement or his investors?
More likely the investors and employees - though the latter really is just sentiment and they could just be all replaced, just the news of them dumping the project could be more harmful than actually giving in to the business interests of investors and employees.
Then again, if none of the investors and/or employees can see how they've just committed business seppuku, what did they think they were doing in the past and how did they think crypto users preferred to do business?
well, this is an other reason that a real DEX should be available. As soon as somebody launches a useful DEX they will get a lot of users. and the more users the more volume, the more users the more volume => success.
i liked shapeshifter to quickly exchange some fund. Funds that i dont want to transfer to an exchange....
A real, cross platform, atomic swapping DEX. That is, indeed, the dream.
But in the meanwhile, a decentralised P2P platform might do the job just as well. Maybe with less speed, but with more protection (escrow).