Crypto exchange Bittrex announced on Monday that it was filing for bankruptcy in the state of Delaware.
The Bittrex team clarified that the bankruptcy would not affect its international unit, Bittrex Global. The team explained:
Having previously announced that Bittrex, Inc. would be ceasing all operations in the U.S. effective April 30th, we have now made the decision to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in Delaware. This announcement does not impact Bittrex Global, which will continue operations as normal for its customers outside the U.S.
In addition, any US customers’ funds still in the exchange will be distributed as soon as possible in alignment with bankruptcy proceedings.
For those customers who did not withdraw their funds from the platform prior to the end of April, your funds remain safe and secure, and our main priority is to ensure that our customers are made whole.
While the Bankruptcy Court will ultimately decide the method by which those funds can be claimed by and distributed to our customers, we intend to ask the court to activate those accounts as soon as possible so that customers meeting the necessary regulatory requirements will be able to withdraw them.
US SEC Charges Bittrex With Operating an Unregistered Securities Exchange
Bittrex’s exit from the United States and its filing for bankruptcy comes less than a month after the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it was charging the crypto exchange and its co-founder and former CEO William Shihara “for operating an unregistered national securities exchange broker, and clearing agency.”
Court documents also show that Bittrex cited regulatory uncertainty as the major reason why the crypto exchange chose to leave the United States.
Bittrex explained:
© Solana Daily Brief, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is for informational purposes only. It is not to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.The lack of regulatory clarity in the U.S. created a substantial negative economic impact on the digital asset industry and resulted in overlapping regulatory burdens and soaring regulatory costs, on both the state and federal level.
As a result, the Debtors faced an untenable regulatory and economic environment that compelled them to initiate a restructuring process and an orderly wind down of their U.S. operations