Instant Cryptocurrency Exchange ShapeShift Raises $1.6 Million

ShapeShift announced today that it had completed its fundraising of $1.6 million USD. ShapeShift is an exchange that allows users to transfer Bitcoin for dozens of other cryptocurrencies without any accounts or personal information being shared.

Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group and Roger Ver were the lead investors in this round. Bitfinex, Bitcoin Capital led by Max Keiser and Simon Dixon, Mardal Investments, Bruce Fenton, Trevor Koverko, and Michael Terpin also invested in the funding round.

“ShapeShift demonstrated an entirely new way to think about asset exchange,” said Zane Tackett, Director of Community and Product Development at Bitfinex, in a statement. “We’ve known Erik for a while now and he’s knocked it out of the park with this one.”

According to the company, the exchange has experienced 100x growth since its launch in August 2014. In July, it had over $2 million in USD-equivalent volume, which was a record for the company.

What makes ShapeShift unique is that exchanges are instantaneous and require no personal information. Further, ShapeShift doesn’t actually hold any of the currencies; it simply facilitates the trade from one coin to the other. At present, there are over 40 different digital currencies. This means that ShapeShift offers over 940 different trading pairs. That is greater than any single exchange on the market.

However, one type of currency cannot be traded. ShapeShift has a strict “no fiat” policy, which means that if a user wanted to buy bitcoin with US dollars, they’d be unable to. Instead, the user would have to first buy it from another company and then they could trade on the ShapeShift exchange.

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