Some things get off to a rocky start. Much like bitcoin itself, which is still facing issues regarding mass acceptance and adoption, a new decentralized exchange known as Bitsquare has not managed to raise the funds its wished for through the crowdfunding platform Lighthouse.
The company was originally aiming to raise about 120 bitcoins for the creation of its first milestone. Bitsquare is trying to enable heightened privacy for bitcoin users while at the same time avoiding control from a central authority (a common problem amongst many bitcoin exchanges).
Bitsquare team member Richard Myers commented on Bitsquare’s goals, saying:
“We were motivated to develop Bitsquare because no truly decentralized exchanges currently exist despite the core bitcoin principle being to enable decentralized financial transactions between individuals… The problems with centralized bitcoin exchanges have been obvious for a long time. Centralized exchanges are not only a single point of failure, but also a target of theft by both hackers and insiders. The Mt. Gox loss is an obvious example, as is the more recent Bitstamp hack.”
However, the first phase of the startup’s funding round ends today (February 9, 2015) and unfortunately, not even half of the funding goal has been raised. A mere 42 percent of the funds have been accumulated, and it just doesn’t seem that this is going to be enough to get things moving right away.
Naturally, the company still has the rest of the day to try and raise the remaining funds necessary, but things aren’t looking particularly good at the moment.
For anyone wishing to donate funds to Bitsquare, they may visit here.
