Bottle Pay, a service that allowed users to send bitcoin via social media accounts, will be closing its operations due to new mnti-Money laundering (AML) regulations in the European Union.
In an official announcement made on Dec. 13, the company said it will be ending its service on Tuesday, December 31st, just ahead of the new EU regulations that go into effect in early January.
According to the announcement,
After having built a fantastic community around our service, and seeing huge growth in user numbers over the last few months, it is with heavy hearts that we announce Bottle Pay will cease operating on Tuesday 31st December 2019 at 13:00 GMT.
Bottle Pay says the information required to be collected from users to comply with the new regulations would “alter the current user experience so radically, and so negatively” that they were forced to cease their operation instead.
The post continues,
Therefore to maintain our integrity as service providers, and to protect the interests of our team, investors and users, we have taken the painful decision to shut Bottle Pay down completely rather than become subject to these new regulations.
The service has already discontinued new sign-ups and deposits as of the posting of the announcement. Bots operating the platform on Twitter, Reddit and other social media outlets have also been taken offline.
Users will have until the Dec. 31 deadline to withdraw their funds or else they will be donated to The Human Rights Foundation.
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