LitePay, a Litecoin merchant processor startup has abruptly stopped its operations. This was announced by the Litecoin Foundation in a post on its website on Monday.
LitePay which was also involved in offering a crypto wallet and “LitePay debit card” which could allow users to convert litecoin into U.S. dollars, was launched in December last year and set to start operations in February of this year. According to data from OpenGovUS, LitePay Inc. started operations on February 1 this year.
The startup had previously won plaudits from the Foundation. The foundation later took to which Twitter in December to write: “Finally, someone is taking the opportunity to create litepay.us. Good job!”
However, from February 26, the startup had only started to roll out its merchant service. The company’s last public messages were related to a mid-March Ask Me Anything session which was posted on Reddit, and an email account which is listed on its website did not reply to a request for comment.
The foundation, which is involved in the development of the digital curencies, said in a post that it had contacted the founder and CEO of the business, Kenneth Asare, following the March 16 AMA, and expressed concerns over the “less than transparent nature” of the startup. It was then that Mr. Asare revealed that the company had halted operations and intended to sell the company.
The foundation in a post explains that Asare even tried to request for more funding which the foundation declined because the money previously given to him could not be appropriately accounted for. He, according to the foundation also failed to give the specific details of the company.Both litecoin founder Charlie Lee and regretted having supported the project
In a tweet, Lee said they became very excited over something that was apparently too good to be real. He adds that the excitement made them ignore a lot of warning signs. On its part, the Litecoin Foundation said it was very disheartened by the way the saga had ended. The foundation said it had failed to pay due diligence which could have helped uncover some issues much earlier.