Two cryptocurrency exchanges came out early on from Y Combinator. One is 2012. One in 2013. One returned 1500X to early investors. The other one ceased to exist after 2 years.

What happened?

The first half of 2015 was the period of Bitcoin’s downswing. And one exchange, that had an early start, raised $75 million to survive this Bitcoin winter in Jan 2015. The other one failed to raise funding and had to close the shop.

Coinbase succeeded.

Buttercoin didn’t.

Two cryptocurrency exchanges.

Both are from Y Combinator.

What a difference the timing made.