BitPay, the crypto payments company which once accidentally gave away millions, has reportedly done serious harm to a rare creature off the coast of China: an independent journalism outlet.
The Hong Kong Free Press exists entirely on donations and charitable endowments. Many of its contributions come from the West.
The organization bills itself as “independent news for Hong Kong.”
Recently, it has been a core source of unbiased reporting as dramatic events have taken the streets of Hong Kong. As an example, this recent article deftly explains the current events in the embattled island.
On an unrelated note, political activities are reportedly suspended as of September 11th out of respect for Americans.
Is BitPay Delivering On The Crypto Mission?
A prime value proposition for cryptocurrency as a whole is that it can lower the cost of transactions across borders. In fact, this is the very opportunity that companies like BitPay, and in a different way, Ripple Labs, hope to exploit as their business model.
However, according to Hong Kong Free Press CEO Tom Grundy, BitPay has lately missed the mark by a large margin.
The frustrated free speech crusader took to Twitter to denigrate the Atlanta firm, claiming that it had not allowed the venerable newspaper to make a withdrawal in over three weeks.
BIG THANKS to HKFP's supporters who donated HK$14,817 in Bitcoin since 2015.
However, cryto donations are temporarily suspended as @BitPay has refused to transfer @hongkongfp's donations for 3 weeks without good reason. @spair @BitPaySupport pic.twitter.com/gz6AdozcNe
— Tom Grundy (@tomgrundy) September 11, 2019
BitPay has yet to comment on the issue.
While the company had not commented on this issue on Twitter, a user had recently alerted the crypto firm to a security vulnerability.
BitPay Still Leader In Crypto Payments
Hi! We've escalated this up to our security team, and they will be reviewing your disclosure and replying via email. Thanks for reaching out!
— BitPay (@BitPay) September 10, 2019
Grundy says the problem relates to the company’s bank and its use of the IBAN routing system, or lack thereof.
According to Grundy, because his bank uses SWIFT to process payments, BitPay has not been able to process a fiat withdrawal for the outfit.
This might be worrisome to other users in the region.
This reporter has spoken to at least one entrepreneur in Thailand who became so frustrated with BitPay and the associated fees with withdrawal that he established his own crypto payment processor, AtomicPay.
For its part, BitPay is subject to a great deal of regulation as well as infrastructure costs when it comes to processing fiat payments. The company must deal with all the traditional hurdles, plus the increased taxes and friction of exchanging cryptocurrency on a regular basis.
BitPay stands as one of the leading crypto payments providers. It competes with companies like Coinbase, who relaunched their payments processor as Coinbase Commerce last year.
