Bitcoin Tipping Platform Zapchain to Shut Down

Another bitcoin-based content monetization startup has announced it will shut down.

Social network Zapchain, launched in 2014 as part of accelerator Boost VC's fourth batch of startups, has told users that it will cease services effective 31st August. The announcement comes less than a year after the startup raised $350,000 in seed funding.

The decision, made public on the company's website, marks the end of a project that was once one of bitcoin’s fastest-growing projects, and comes amid a decline in the number of consumer-facing startups seeking to launch services on the bitcoin network.

Bitcoin tipping platform ChangeTip, for example, announced it had sold its staff to Airbnb in April, and that it was searching for a buyer of its intellectual property. No details have yet been provided on whether Zapchain will seek similar sales.

Despite these challenges, however, the concept that blockchains could come to serve a vital part of content monetization lives on, most recently with the controversial success of social media platform Steemit, though it uses an alternative to the bitcoin blockchain.

Representatives from Zapchain could not be reached at press time.

Content sharing image via Zapchain