Share this article
The Crypto Community Isn't Sad or Surprised By R3's Reported Woes
R3 is reportedly running low on cash – and judging by the social media response, the crypto-community isn't showing much sympathy.
By Muyao Shen
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 8:02 a.m. Published Jun 8, 2018, 8:18 p.m.
Distributed ledger startup R3 is reportedly running low on cash – and judging by the social media response, the crypto-community isn't showing much sympathy.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
reported Thursday that R3 is facing a cash crunch, coming just over a year after the company announced a $107 million funding round to "bring blockchain services to the financial sector" (though per the publication, $98.2 million of that amount constituted "new money").
Charley Cooper, a managing director for R3, "did not provide any specific figures but told Fortune that the company exceeded its revenue targets last year and will provide an update at the end of this calendar year," according to Fortune.
R3 first launched in 2014 with the stated goal of applying the technology underpinnings of blockchain to the finance sector, culminating in the launch of their distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform Corda. Its consortium attracted a number of big-name supporters including Wall Street banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.
But R3 later ran into headwinds, losing JPMorgan and Goldman, among others, as consortium members in 2017, as reported by CoinDesk.
Fortune, citing two former employees at R3, reported that the company could be out of money by early next year even with the recently raised $107 million funds. One of them added that the number was also likely "overstated" as it "included consulting fees from prior years that R3 reclassified as equity under terms of its partner agreements."
Yet in a tweet published Friday, R3 indicated that its finances aren't a concern.
We're flattered by all the attention, but really, we're fine ☺️ pic.twitter.com/4u9LuInIab
— R3 (@inside_r3) June 8, 2018
What the community is saying
For some observers, the reported problems represent a kind of comeuppance in light of comments from R3's executives about bitcoin.
These are the guys who said "The Bitcoin experiment has failed"
These are the guys who said "No Blockchain, because we don't need one"
Again and again, the legacy banking and corporate world will fail to understand Bitcoin's fundamental value proposition.https://t.co/F5XVNcewdA
— Beautyon (@Beautyon_) June 7, 2018
For people new to the space wondering why anyone cares: many of R3's execs aggressively derided bitcoin for *years*, and really spearheaded the backwards "blockchain not bitcoin" nonsense. https://t.co/sojfrTJykA
— Dan McArdle (@robustus) June 7, 2018
One observer honed in on R3's alleged big-spending ways.
I couldn't prove, but always felt that for R3 executives their lifestyle/self interest > productivity, while for Ripple it's the exact opposite. pic.twitter.com/zqFbqoQikD
— TplusZero (@TplusZero) June 8, 2018
Another (perhaps only somewhat jokingly) suggested that R3's investors would have been better off had they invested the funds in bitcoin instead.
If @inside_r3 investors bought bitcoin instead, they would now own 101,462 BTC worth $781 million. Ouch! pic.twitter.com/sVWOdFNw2c
— girevik (@girevikcap) June 7, 2018
And to this observer, the reported woes highlight the hard lessons for investors.
R3 reportedly running out of money. Former employees claim internal revenue targets were "short 10x", "laughably off".
Investors learning the hard way to be skeptical of hand-wavy blockchain hype.https://t.co/Tn6PithFeZ
— Stephen ⚡️ (@sthenc) June 7, 2018
Photo credit: Michael del Castillo
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin Slips Back Toward Danger Zone Ahead of Fed Decision
Bitcoin surrendered gains from earlier in the week, fell back toward $90,000 as traders braced for Wednesday’s Federal Reserve rate decision.
What to know:
- A 25 basis-point interest-rate cut has been priced in for weeks, and risk assets could drop on the news if no fresh catalysts emerge.
- Tokens like HYPE, STRK, QNT and KAS fell 6%–9% in 24 hours
- CoinMarketCap’s altcoin-season index sits at a cycle low of 18/100.
- Bitcoin is down 20% over 90 days and more than half of the top-100 tokens have fallen at least 40%. FET and TIA are among the worst performers while ZEC, DASH, BNB and BCH stand out as rare stabilizers.
Top Stories
