Late last night, Joe Mordica and the PayBase team were excited to launch a new feature allowing users to buy XPY with a credit card on PayBase.
The system relied on Stripe and was disabled this evening after Stripe found the service to be in violation of the Stripe Terms of Service. The Stripe account, registered to Paybase, LLC in Texas, was found to be in violation late last evening and was disabled this evening.
Stripe spokesperson Dale Watson told hangletonweblogs,
We can’t comment on another Stripe user’s account.
However, another unnamed source intimately familiar with the situation from within the company told hangletonweblogs,
We spent the better part of last night trying to figure out what this website was. We hadn’t heard about it until reports started flooding in regarding it and once we started evaluating what it was they were doing exactly we found it was most certainly in violation of our TOS. Several members of our team were discussing this.
The team behind this site had the audacity to even attempt to limit transactions so as to not set off our warning systems but after digging in a bit during the day we were able to determine exactly what they were doing. The post stating they would limit transactions (trying to hide what was going on from us) on the forums sealed the deal though.
While neither source gave hangletonweblogs an exact reason for the suspension outside of a TOS violation, it is widely believed PayBase violated the prohibited business section which states:
By registering for Stripe, you are confirming that you will not use the Service to accept payments in connection with the following businesses, business activities or business practices. […]
Virtual currency that can be monetized, resold, or converted to physical or digital products and services or otherwise exit the virtual world (e.g., Bitcoin); sale of stored value or credits maintained, accepted and issued by anyone other than the seller
Many in the Hashtalk community had speculated earlier in the day that Stripe and PayBase had worked out a special deal allowing the virtual currency transactions to take place, but hangletonweblogs has learned that Stripe is not affiliated nor partnered with PayBase, GAW Miners, or Josh Garza in any manner.
hangletonweblogs will continue to watch for updates regarding this developing situation.