Interlapse Technologies (INLA.V) bought BuyBitcoinCanada.com, a virtual currency brokerage platform from Bitaccess Inc., a Canadian blockchain company, in an all share deal today.
This move integrates seamlessly with Interlapse’s platform Coincurve, and effectively widens hte company’s growth profile and digital asset footprint, while giving the company the opportunity to capture even greater amount of market share during a time of global acceleration.
“This is the first step in our non-organic growth strategy to become the preeminent virtual currency platform in Canada and eventually, globally. Today’s announcement advances our consolidation efforts, which benefits Interlapse and supports virtual currency adoption,” said Wayne Chen, CEO of Interlapse Technologies.
When the acquisition is finally closed, BuyBitcoinCanada’s customers will immediately be grandfathered into the Coincurve platform, creating a completely Canadian non-custodial, virtual currency platform.
Bitaccess was founded in 2016, and their flagship website BuyBitcoinCanada.com was the first merchant to integrate Flexepin, a cash top-up voucher that allows users to top-up existing accounts to enable online shopping without the need for a credit or debit card, into their platform. Flexepin Vouchers are available at thousands of locations across Australia and Canada, with thousands more across UK and Europe over the coming months.
“This acquisition represents an opportunity for Canada’s virtual currency market to move towards greater market sophistication, and as a listed Canadian company, we’re confident Interlapse is well-positioned to serve our users whilst continuing their growth of BuyBitcoinCanada’s existing customer base,” said Phillip McKenna, head of growth for Bitaccess.
Interlapse is a fintech applications company dealing primarily with Bitcoin. Their signature product Coincurve.com is an online platform where prospective buyers can buy and sell small chunks of a Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash, and have them sent straight to (or from) their bank accounts through interac or flexepin.
This is a website primarily for folks who heard about Bitcoin secondhand from a friend bragging about making quick cash and wanted in on it, but was a little too intimidated by all the numbers, charts, and terminology of exchanges. For the rest of us, it’s probably best that we stick with exchanges. Not only do they offer more options, such as inter-exchange arbitrage options and shapeshifting, but exchanges have no maximum amount for deposit, even if the $20 (or 4% on $500) price to do business is halfways decent. In comparison, Gemini Exchange in New York has a flat rate of .5% before fees, and it’s a worthwhile price if you’re interested in all the bells and whistles, security and insurance that come along with doing business on an exchange.
Unlike Gemini (and all other exchanges), Coincurve gives you the opportunity to actually spend your coins, by giving you access to retailers. So far the company allows customers to purchase eGift Cards with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, which will assist you in buying products with your money.
Another interesting point about Coincurve is that their stripped-down cryptocurrency application doesn’t offer a wallet-service. Most exchanges do, because they recognize the opportunity inherent in a proprietary wallet, but not Coincurve. It makes sense if the company is angling towards a certain kind of specialization—easy to access cryptocurrency—but what happens when it’s not on our site, as their easily found terms section indicates—is no longer their problem. By not offering a proprietary wallet they may have reduced their overall customer base, but they’ve also limited their liability as well.
If you’re looking for easy access to cryptocurrency ownership, without having to read all the charts, graphs and learn the language, then Coincurve might be for you.
—Joseph Morton
