Paxos (shhh it's really itBit) Happens

The bizarre drama of itBit continues. We'll try to sum this up as painlessly as possible.

About a year ago itBit happened with allot of promise. They took the charter route to avoid money transmission laws and stormed on to the scene as a new exchange. It all seemed to go downhill from there. 

In a whirlwind of self-destructive behavior capped off with a flock of employees running for the door the companies future seemed unclear. Not only has that not changed, it's gotten even more confusing and diluted.  

A wise man once told me that if you could explain what your company does in a single sentence your not going to get very far. I don't think you could sum the itBit fiasco up in the 5 page essay.

itBit Explained

We'll try anyway.  itBit began as an exchange to feature professional grade trading tools complete with FIX integration and all the trimmings. Then they were going to do that plus do OTC trading, then they started focusing heavily on OTC trading and where overwhelmed by the volumes, then they backed off of OTC trading. After this slow down they began turning away many professional trading companies. 

Somewhere in there they decided they were going to be a software company too and make a blockchain based financial product. They then announced their blockchain project would not use the blockchain. They announced it would not use bitcoin. It would not use a token. It would be private. It would not be based on blockchain code. It would be permissioned. 

Basically, it wouldn't be a blockcain at all, but they were going to call it Bankchain (an SAP AG copyright infringement mind you) and began promoting that. Then they up and pulled out of Texas, one of the largest and easiest States in the United States to deal with as far as bitcoin goes. 

Somewhere around there a flock of employees began jumping ship and just when you though you'd seen the worst of it, sure enough, more bizarre behavior was next. The latest goes as follows.

itBit is now only going to be part of what itBit was but we're not sure exactly what that means. Paxos (no not Paxful) has now been formed and will be a sister operation to itBit we assume since all the same mugs that were on itBit's website are now on the Paxos shell.

Paxos hasn't done anything, but they say they've done everything, however wasn't it itBit that actually did everything? Which wasn't much of anything?

I don't even think they know what's going on, just give this press release excerpt a read:

Paxos, a financial technology company delivering revolutionary blockchain solutions for global financial institutions, today unveiled its new brand. The name Paxos is inspired by a technical term that represents a process for reaching consensus. The name underscores the company's goal to leverage consensus-driven blockchain technology in transforming the way global financial institutions work together. The company's flagship service, Bankchain, is a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution transforming post-trade market infrastructures and back office processes for its global clients. Bankchain was previously recognized under the itBit umbrella, but has become established as an offering under the Paxos brand.

Do they even know what they do?

First off ... wouldn't that be CBPAAS? Cloud-based-platform as a service?? (Hey they said it, not me) and secondly please change the name. Like immediately. We already have a Paxful in the industry and Paxos sounds like a blatant ripoff worse than Bankchain being copied from SAP (and I am sure they might eventually notice). I mean this is bad. 

Then take note of the "delivering revolutionary blockchain solutions for global financial institutions". Where are all of these solutions globally all over the place that they have been delivering? You'd think something of the magnitude of "delivering revolutionary blockchain solutions for global financial institutions" might have been mentioned a couple times by somebody somewhere in these places all over the world being delivered to. 

The the contradiction of the "today unveiled its new brand." followed by the "Bankchain was previously recognized under the itBit umbrella".

So it's a new, but old brand of workflow Cloudware. No not just old because it was itBit but because it takes a step backwards by taking all of the blockchain parts out of blockchain technology and sugarcoats some normal Cloudware as "blockchain".

Wait! There's more!

Not only all of the above but they also are digitizing gold. No, that idea isn't original either, they swiped that from BitGold. Even so, where the hell did Gold come from? 

Apparently this might have to do something with Euroclear, at least this is what they (itBit/Paxos) say.

Starting to see the dilemma here? Anyone want to take a stab at a single sentence to sum this up? Actually I can sum it up in a single word.

Disaster.

You can go visit their website too, htttp://www.paxos.com where you'll find a very itBit-ish looking site with the same mugshots as itBit had but nothing more than a few lines of self-proclaimed greatness. No product demo, no case studies, no customer stories, and not much of anything at all other than what was one the Bankchain website but now Gold being digitized has now gotten place on a pedestal. 

Note we started this up talking about FIX integration and pro-grade virtual currency tools and now we're talking about digitizing gold. All over the course of about a year. 

Dare I ask what's next? 

I think the 8 million different directions makes it clear there's a lack of organization at this firm(s), that's putting the exodus of its employees aside of course. I cringe at the thought of what might be next, this can't possibly get any worse... can it?

itBit/Paxos appear (from the outside anyway) like an unstable organization lacking direction. That's not saying they are, but just what the general "view" seems to be of the firm(s). Given all of the bizarre behavior in the past and now this, it seems to be for good reason.

After going over it all one thing has become clear. We're beginning to think our previous 5 page essay assessment was drastically underestimated. 

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