It is never fun to see cryptocurrency exchanges shut down. Especially not if the platform has been around for several years already. Coinprism has become somewhat of a household name in the world of cryptocurrency and colored coins. Unfortunately, the service will meet its demise at the end of March of this year. The block explorer and API will be taken offline as well. It is a worrisome development, as no one knows the exact reason for this decision.
Coinprism has been a successful entity in the world of cryptocurrency Ever since launching in 2014, the service has received a lot of positive attention. This wallet service will be taken offline in a few weeks from today. Their block explorer and API will become redundant on the same date as well. It is evident there is a lot of competition in this ecosystem as we speak. For some players, such as Coinprism, it has become difficult to keep the head above water.
Curtain Call for Coinprism
With the rise in popularity of ERC20 tokens, colored coins are all but forgotten. In a way, colored coins are the “tokens” of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Unfortunately, this solution never reached its full potential, as few people were interested in such a service. A block explorer is not hard to come by either in this regard. Without further innovation, shutting down is the only available option to Coinprism as of right now. All users need to withdraw their funds before March 31st of 2018.
Moreover, the platform’s team urges users to export their private keys as soon as possible. It is a quick process to ensure users are in full control of their money at all times. Once the key is exported, it can be swept into a Bitcoin-compatible wallet. Users who want to keep their colored coins assets will need a compatible wallet as well. Bitcoin wallets do not support colored coins by default. It is an unfortunate and sad decision, but one that seemingly makes sense. We may never know the real reason as to why the team doesn’t take a different course of action altogether.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds. While colored coins are less popular, the concept is still solid. Unfortunately, most people prefer ERC20 tokens as of right now. When the Ethereum blockchain gets flooded with transactions, those tokens can’t be moved either. It is possible a different company will take Coinprism’s lace in this industry moving forward. Which service that may be, has yet to be determined at this point.
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