- Bittrex announce that it will be closing its US branch on April 30, citing regulatory uncertainty.
- Customers can trade until April 14 and they need to withdraw funds on or before April 30.
- Bittrex Global will be unaffected and founders will focus on helping overseas operations thrive instead.
Bittrex, one of the oldest surviving cryptocurrency exchanges today, announced that it will be closing down its US branch indefinitely.
As said in the tweet above, the primary motivation for this decision is the “continued regulatory uncertainty” faced by crypto firms — exchanges mostly — in the US. Specifically, the exchange admitted that it would be financially unwise for them to continue operating in the US with the country’s relentless offensive on crypto firms.
Bittrex US will cease its operations on April 30 and customers need to withdraw their funds until that day. However, those who wish to continue trading on the exchange may do so until April 14. Customer funds are safe and are backed 1:1, the exchange assured in the official announcement.
Overseas operations of Bittrex Global will remain unaffected. In fact, the founders are focusing on helping grow the exchange’s overseas operations instead.
The announcement came in the wake of a whirlwind of regulatory scrutiny by the US against crypto firms. Recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren boldly announced that she is assembling an ‘army’ against the crypto space.
Leading US-based exchanges Kraken and Coinbase are also suffering extra policing from regulators, especially the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Finally, Binance got handed down a surprise lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
