A new startup called Rare Bits wants to become an eBay for cryptocurrency goods, where anyone can easily trade digital assets based on cryptocurrencies.
The company, which launched its platform a few months ago, recently received $6 million in Series A funding. Among those investing in the company include Twitch’s former CEO Justin Kan and its current CEO Emmett Shear. First Round Capital and Spark Capital are also investors.
In a report by CNBC, the platform matches buyers and sellers of products based cryptocurrencies, as opposed to the cryptocurrencies themselves. The concept was previously and successfully used in a site called CryptoKitties, where people buy and sell digital kittens using cryptocurrency. In its first month, Rare Bits says that it has processed in excess of $100,000 of transactions.
Amitt Mahajan, who is the co-founder of the company, previously created Farmville, which also allowed users to buy and sell virtual assets. Mahajan started Rare Bits with two other former employees of Zynga, which was the developer of Farmville.
Currently, Mahajan says that Rare Bits primarily serves people who are already familiar with cryptocurrencies, but that he hopes to involve others who may find digital currencies daunting, to say the least. He says that this is reason that many people have so far avoided doing anything related to cryptocurrencies. He further says that eventually their platform might not even mention anything about cryptocurrencies or blockchains. He says that they will just come there to buy and sell interesting digital assets, without having any knowledge or understanding of the underlying technologies.
Mahajan goes on to say that in the future people on Rare Bits may also buy and sell such diverse products as music licenses, software and even real estate. They are currently developing an auxiliary site called Fan Bits, where people will be able to buy and sell memorabilia related to social media content producers. Ultimately, Mahajan says, the company’s goal is to allow people to buy and sell any imaginable digital good on the blockchain, regardless of whether they know what exactly a digital good or a blockchain is.
Dil Bole Oberoi
