Bonafide
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Bonafide, founded in 2013, was a Bitcoin reputation startup offering an API of identity and reputation data to wallets, exchanges and other Bitcoin services, so merchants could identify counterparties. It raised $850,000 from investors including Blockchain Capital.
02 / Bonafide FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Cofounders Karthik Balasubramanian and Brian Moyer blamed the market: investor interest and activity had shifted to private and alternate blockchains rather than public Bitcoin, where Bonafide operated, and consumer Bitcoin spending declined. They saw little chance of generating revenue, pivoting the product or securing additional funding, and ceased operations in November 2015, less than a year after raising $850,000.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Bonafide ended operations.
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
How the factors connect
- 01
Bitcoin identity and reputation API for merchants
- 02
$850K raised in 2015
- 03
Market shifts to private chains; consumer spending declines
- 04
Nov 2015: operations ceased