Bitcoin Exchange Harborly Shuts Down Due To Shrinking Market Opportunity

The announcement that North American bitcoin exchange, Harborly, is closing is the most recent example of a continuing consolidation of businesses that were part of the original wave of bitcoin entrepreneurship, including bitcoin exchanges, remittance services, wallets, and payment processing.

Last week SMS bitcoin wallet and remittance provider, 37 Coins, joined Google Ventures backed bitcoin exchange Buttercoin, and bitcoin marketplace Brawker, all having ceased operations this year.

“When we first launched Harborly just over a year ago, we had the vision of giving our users the simplest, quickest, and safest way to buy and sell Bitcoin globally using their local currency,” read a farewell blog post by Harborly.

“Our team has had an incredible and exhilarating journey as a provider within the Bitcoin ecosystem as it experienced highs, lows, and everything in between.”
— – Harborly

The startup’s website listed numerous successful entrepreneurs on its advisory board, including Alem Health, founder Aschkan Abdul-Malek; KCP Capital Managing Director, Roderik van der Graaf; Afrasia Development Corp. Chairman, Pierre Gussing; ex-Deutsche Bank executive, Jordan Himel; and Tauil & Chequer Advogados Río de Janeiro partner, Salim Saud Neto. Harborly also raised a small seed round from numerous undisclosed angel investors.

The startup launched the company’s exchange services in Canada and the United States three months ago, in May, claiming to offer a cheaper and more user friendly alternative to existing options. It came after nearly a year of planning and development.

The exchange also voiced its interests in bitcoin as a global transaction platform, saying that it planned to be operational in several emerging markets by the end of year. Mostly notably, it said that it was preparing to launch in India soon, where they would operate a US-India bitcoin remittance service, becoming the first bitcoin company to do so.

“Bitcoin’s core architecture is innately borderless, but, generally speaking, it’s impractical to use in most regions across the globe. Digital currency is in a unique position right now where its success is dependent on cooperation with the current financial system, and this cooperation is shaky at best,” said Harborly CEO and co-founder Connor Black when the exchange first launched.

New businesses offering basic bitcoin services, such as exchanges and wallets, are becoming less and less interesting to consumers, as well investors, as the industry already has several well-funded companies adequately providing those services. Buying, selling, storing and using the digital currency were some of the biggest problems in bitcoins early, but industry leaders have now emerged.

The interest in bitcoin firms has shifted to those pursuing opportunities with the underlying blockchain technology, most notably in the areas of supply chains and institutional settlement.

Black wrote in a farewell post that he is leaving to pursue an unannounced side-project that he sees has much more potential than Harborly, but did not state whether it would be in the bitcoin and blockchain space. He added that he is currently looking for people interested in acquiring the firm’s technology and staff.