Bitcoin Lightning App Bottle Pay Shuts Down Instead of Asking for Users’ Personal Data

Bottle Pay, a bitcoin application that used Lightning network to allow users to send small units of bitcoin (sats) via texts on Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, and Discord, announced today that it would cease operations on Tuesday 31st December 2019.

The company, which according to The Block, raised $2 million in September, disclosed that the decision to shut down operations is linked to the impending adoption of new anti-money laundering laws in Europe beginning 10th January 2020.

Under the 5AMLD EU regulation, companies like Bottle Pay that facilitates financial transactions would be required to obtain personal information from users, something the startup believes is not suitable to its business model, and will adversely affect user experience.

The announcement read:

The amount and type of extra personal information we would be required to collect from our users would alter the current user experience so radically, and so negatively, that we are not willing to force this onto our community.

Therefore, rather than abide by the incoming regulation, Bottle Pay said it would be in the best interest of both users, investors to cease operations. Such a measure was also advocated as one that maintains the integrity of the startup as a service provider.

Given that BottlePay never charged for our services, sold anything to the community or added routing fees, the team expressed confidence that it can close shop knowing “that [they] always acted with the well being of our users foremost in [their] minds.”

Bottle Pay’s Shutdown Schedule

At the time of writing, Bottle Pay has ceased accepting new registration for its application and also stipulated a two-week window for users to withdraw their funds to other platforms.

Fund left on the application after 13:00 GMT on Tuesday 31st December will purportedly be withdrawn, and donated to the Human Rights Foundation according to the announcement.

Meanwhile, in a similar development, Coinfomania reported that decentralized crypto exchange, CryptoBridge will shut down because of increased regulatory scrutiny on the industry.