11 Jun 2015 / Forbes – Self-described “political ideologue” Erik Voorhees was one of Bitcoin’s earliest adopters back in 2011. Three years and a couple Bitcoin startups later, the entrepreneur found himself frustrated with the thought of wasting an entire afternoon setting up an account on a Bitcoin exchange to buy cryptocurrency. To make the process easier, he founded instant crypto exchange platform ShapeShift.io in 2014 under a pseudonym. With Tuesday’s launch of ShapeShift’s iOS app—the first iOS cryptocurrency trading app in the App Store—users can now exchange Bitcoin and 34 other digital currencies with just a tap of their iPhones.
For now, ShapeShift is only available on iOS, but Voorhees says an Android version is coming soon. His seven-person team decided to start with iOS first because they anticipated more resistance from Apple’s carefully guarded App Store than from the Google Play Store.
“We wanted to do the Apple one first because Apple makes it tricky to get Bitcoin apps approved,” Voorhees said. “It was actually an extremely fluid process. I guess the ghost of Steve Jobs was looking out for us.”……. Read more