Another Bear Market Loser
Finnish exchange LocalBitcoins shuts down its operations after ruthless market.
The Finland-based peer-to-peer cryptocurrency platform, LocalBitcoins, has announced the termination of services on February 16th after a 10-year run in the industry. The company has advised its customers to withdraw their cryptocurrency as soon as possible, even though they have 12 months to do so.
It is understood that the shutting down is due to the downward trend or bearish market that cryptocurrency has suffered in the last months. The company stated “ongoing, very cold crypto-winter” in a tweet on February 9th, as they cannot provide a Bitcoin trading service.
According to CoinDance, weekly trading volumes in the platform have been gradually decreasing for some time after having peaked at almost $130 million or 840 thousand BTC in volume during the bull market in 2017. Compared to 2023, LocalBitcoins reported a weekly trading volume of $6 million or 283 BTC.
The sudden closing of LocalBitcoins has drawn attention after the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network mentioned the platform among the biggest Bitcoin sender to the Russian-linked exchange Bitzlato. There have been some speculations and accusations by the U.S. authorities that Bitzlato has been involved in money laundering and facilitating the circumvention of sanctions against Russia.
“Based on our data, there have practically been no transactions between LocalBitcoins and BitZlato since October 2022, after we stopped serving Russian user accounts and accounts of users residing in Russia,” LocalBitcoins CMO Jukka Blomberg told Cointelegraph in a statement in January 2023.
As previously mentioned, Russia was one of the biggest markets for LocalBitcoins, accounting for almost 20% of the total BTC trading volumes between April and June 2020.
Jukka Bloomberg also stated that the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority has regulated the company since 2019, and the Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations have been followed.
Sources: cointelegraph.com, www.bloomberg.com
analyst opinion
Diego Kebork
The Finland-based peer-to-peer cryptocurrency platform, LocalBitcoins, has announced the termination of services on February 16th after a 10-year run in the industry. The company has advised its customers to withdraw their cryptocurrency as soon as possible, even though they have 12 months to do so.
It is understood that the shutting down is due to the downward trend or bearish market that cryptocurrency has suffered in the last months. The company stated “ongoing, very cold crypto-winter” in a tweet on February 9th, as they cannot provide a Bitcoin trading service.
According to CoinDance, weekly trading volumes in the platform have been gradually decreasing for some time after having peaked at almost $130 million or 840 thousand BTC in volume during the bull market in 2017. Compared to 2023, LocalBitcoins reported a weekly trading volume of $6 million or 283 BTC.
The sudden closing of LocalBitcoins has drawn attention after the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network mentioned the platform among the biggest Bitcoin sender to the Russian-linked exchange Bitzlato. There have been some speculations and accusations by the U.S. authorities that Bitzlato has been involved in money laundering and facilitating the circumvention of sanctions against Russia.
“Based on our data, there have practically been no transactions between LocalBitcoins and BitZlato since October 2022, after we stopped serving Russian user accounts and accounts of users residing in Russia,” LocalBitcoins CMO Jukka Blomberg told Cointelegraph in a statement in January 2023.
As previously mentioned, Russia was one of the biggest markets for LocalBitcoins, accounting for almost 20% of the total BTC trading volumes between April and June 2020.
Jukka Bloomberg also stated that the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority has regulated the company since 2019, and the Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations have been followed.
Sources: cointelegraph.com, www.bloomberg.com
Previous
Next
