Tinker
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Tinker was a cryptocurrency electronic trading and market-making firm founded in 2014 in Waterloo, Canada, by ex-Facebook engineer Gareth MacLeod as part of Y Combinator's Summer 2014 batch. At its peak the firm processed over $10 million in daily trading volume, at one point representing 10 to 20 percent of all BTCUSD trading on regulated exchanges. MacLeod's earlier venture, Tinkercoin, had sold small amounts of bitcoin to first-time buyers by credit card.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Tinkercoin founded
Gareth MacLeod co-founds Tinkercoin in Ontario, a service selling first-time buyers $20 of bitcoin by credit card.
- Pivot to Tinker
The Tinkercoin retail service is suspended in September 2014 and the team moves on to other bitcoin projects; Tinker is founded as a crypto market-making firm and joins Y Combinator's Summer 2014 batch.
- Inactive
Y Combinator lists Tinker as Inactive; no dated shutdown announcement or post-mortem has been published.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.