ChangeCoin
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
ChangeCoin, founded in San Francisco in 2013, built Bitcoin micropayment infrastructure. Its product ChangeTip let people send small Bitcoin tips across social platforms by replying with an amount. At its peak it processed over 10,000 tips in a day and raised about $3.5 million.
02 / ChangeCoin FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The tipping business model never added up: per-transaction fees on penny-sized tips left no room for revenue growth, while server, support and salary costs ran high. In 2016 Airbnb acqui-hired most of the team — reportedly more interested in the staff than the business — and ChangeTip discontinued tipping in November 2016, switching to withdrawal-only mode so users could collect their funds.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
ChangeCoin 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 micropayment infrastructure
- 02
ChangeTip: tips via social media
- 03
Fees on penny tips never covered overhead
- 04
2016: acqui-hired by Airbnb; tipping discontinued Nov