Abra (company)

Abra is a financial services and technology company that operates an all-in-one, custodial cryptocurrency wallet and exchange.

Abra
TypePrivate
IndustryFinancial services
Founded2014
FounderBill Barhydt (CEO)
Headquarters
Mountain View, CA
,
U.S.
Area served
World
ServicesCryptocurrency wallet and exchange
Websiteabra.com

History

Abra was founded in 2014 in the Silicon Valley by Bill Barhydt, a former software engineer for Goldman Sachs and former director of Netscape.[1][2]

By February 2017, Abra expanded its business and began to establish itself as a secure remittance application. The Philippines remittance market, where Abra began its tests and expanded its business, had a value of over $500 Billion, mostly due to a large number of Filipino workers going abroad and sending money back to their families. Barhydt and his team took advantage of this opportunity by offering an inexpensive remittance service through the Abra app.[3]

In March 2018, Abra added support for 20 new cryptocurrencies including Litecoin, Ether, Vertcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Stellar.[4] Abra also began expanding onto social media, primarily YouTube, by posting informative videos on everything regarding cryptocurrencies. Bill Barhydt started a series on YouTube entitled Crypto Bites, where he meets with some of the most famous and influential crypto leaders. These talks included individuals such as Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Bitcoin Cash supporter Roger Ver, Zcash creator Zooko Wilcox, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley, and venture capitalists Tim Draper and Adam Draper. In June 2018, Abra was listed in The Wall Street Journal as one of the "Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch in 2018".[5]

Criticisms

In October 2018, Abra introduced the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Token. The BIT10 was similar to an ETF or Index Fund that held a basket of cryptocurrencies instead of stocks.[6] Due to ongoing regulatory uncertainty, Abra removed BIT10 from the Abra app and by December 15, 2019, funds that were previously held in BIT10 were converted into Bitcoin on the app.[7] In early 2019, Abra began to allow users to buy fractions of stocks and ETFs.[8] However, by July 2020, Abra was charged by the SEC and CFTC to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. Abra was offering and selling security-based swaps to retail investors without registration and was failing to transact those swaps on a registered national exchange. After the investigation, Abra paid a total of $300,000 in civil penalties to both the SEC and CFTC.[9]

See also

References
  1. Tepper, Fitz (10 September 2015). "Abra Raises $12M In Series A Funding For Its Bitcoin-Based Remittance Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  2. Eugenios, Jillian (9 June 2015). "Your bank account: The next thing to go obsolete". CNN. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  3. "Ratan Tata, Amex invest in US bitcoin startup Abra". VCCircle. October 23, 2015.
  4. "Abra adds 20 cryptocurrencies to its wallet app". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  5. Pettit, Dave (2018-06-12). "WSJ Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch 2018". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  6. Beedham, Matthew (October 4, 2018). "Why Abra's new 'ETF' cryptocurrency token is far more complicated than it sounds". The Next Web.
  7. "BIT10 Deadline 12/15". Abra.
  8. Beedham, Matthew (February 6, 2019). "Abra lets you magically buy stock with Bitcoin… but it's crazy complex". The Next Web.
  9. Riley, Duncan (July 13, 2020). "Crypto firm Abra settles with regulators after offering unregistered swap transactions". SiliconANGLE.
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