Bitreserve has broken through its £6 million GBP ($9.35 Million USD) target on the British crowd-funding website Crowdcube.
With 8 days left to run, during which time they can continue to receive ‘overfunding’ investments, the South Carolina (United States) firm is already claiming the second biggest ever crowdfunding campaign for a cryptocurrency project, behind only Etheruem’s ‘pre-sale’ of tokens, and is comfortably the largest one ever for a Bitcoin company. This ‘Series B’ investment round, which was launched in November 2014, is in addition to the $4.5 million which the firm have previously raised from institutional investors.
Bitreserve aims to provide a way for regular consumers to use Bitcoin without being exposed to the risks posed by its volatile price. They would do this by holding a certain value denominated in fiat currency or precious metals within their bitcoin wallet. For example, they might have $20 or 1 ounce of silver worth of btc in their wallet. The company, created by CNET founder Halsey Minor, also has a payments API and runs a payment processing service for retailers wishing to accept btc payments from their customers.
A large part of the total investment is thought to have come from institutional investors, through the Venovate platform in the United States. But according to forum posts by Mr Minor they chose to use a Crowdfunding site in order to “respect small investors” and as part of the firm’s commitment to support “innovation with social benefit” wherever possible. Crowdcube is a UK based platform which allows small investors to legally purchase equity in start-up companies.
