Infiniti Poker, The Bitcoin Room That Never Was, Vanishes
The wait is over…..really over.
Infiniti Poker, an “upcoming” online poker room that promised to become one of the most significant Bitcoin operators in the sector has reportedly vanished following over a year worth of delays with its official launch.
Infiniti was set to go live 12 months ago but never did. The site insisted that additional testing would be required for the full launch that never happened.
Founder and CEO Michael Hajduk has partnered with a leading online Bitcoin wallet to create an interface that he described as “really friendly” with “quick payout times".
Last year, Haiduk considered the Bitcoin option among the safest payment methods for US-based poker players.
“Because we’re using Bitcoin, we’re not using U.S. banks—it’s all peer-to-peer,” Hajduk told BusinessWeek.com in regard to fears over potentially breaking current US laws. “I don’t believe we’ll be doing anything wrong.
“In the worst case scenarion, if [the DOJ] seize our domain name your Bitcoin will be safe because there’s no central authority controlling the currency and thus it cannot be frozen by any third party.”
Since that time, the US Government has arrested one operator from bitcoin facilitator, BitInstant, and Miami Beach police arrested two individuals for running a local Bitcoin exchange, LocalBitcoin.
This week, one of the first and largest Bitcoin exchanges, Mt.Gox, appeared to have ceased operations.
Infiniti Poker has been inaccessible over the past two weeks.
Hajduk’s years-long launch of Infiniti has been a lengthy tale of banking and infrastructure delays, failed soft launches and beta tests and other problems, Haley Hintze of FlushDraw.com noted.
The initial investment in Infiniti was what caught the industry’s attention. PriceWaterhouseCoopers was brought on to help develop the site’s financial structure while big name poker pro Gavin Smith had been hired as the face of Infiniti.
The irony in all of this is that the name “Infiniti” is derived from the word “Infinity” or “infinite”, which means “never coming to an end”.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
