Romania’s First Bitcoin Exchange Shuts Down, Again
BTCXchange, Romania’s first order book exchange has closed operations, nearly a month after the platform was put up for sale on August 18, 2016.
Romanian bitcoin exchange BTCXchange has shut down operations in the country.
The platform was initially put on sale following an announcement on August 18, 2016, a Facebook post by the exchange revealed.
However, the failure to find a buyer – presumably – saw BTCXchange owner Horea Oradea Vuşcan subsequently send emails to customers on September 4 this month, asking them to withdraw funds from the exchange. Another reminder email followed on September 9, advising users to withdraw all funds from the platform that was eventually shut down on Monday this week.
When Vuşcan put up the website for sale last month, he spoke about the “high responsibility” that comes with managing user’s money in the exchange, specifically after the recent Bitfinex hack. That responsibility got weary, Vuşcan suggested. He also stated that running the exchange was a “highly profitable” business that benefited further from a reduced team running low on costs.
The Selling Pitch
Vuşcan’s social media post revealed a fee of 1 BTC sought from interested buyers who will, in return, receive essential information to evaluate the platform. This includes details on the BTCXchange’s statistics, customers, equipment, architecture, terms of law and more.
The second stage would have then seen prospective buyers visit the exchange’s physical office space in the city of Oradea in Romania to assess and discuss code and more with the team of developers at the exchange. Participation in this stage incurred a fee of 2 BTC, in addition to the first stage. However, the closure of operations at the exchange points to a lack of any substantial deal going through.
While the website remains online at the time of publishing, BTCXchange has already closed its doors once in the past following an internal dispute. In December 2014, the platform urged its users to withdraw all their funds (both fiat and BTC) after accusing its lead programmer – at the time – of holding its servers hostage after refusing to resign.
The exchange and its servers were shut down for several months before resurfacing in 2015. The revival was short-lived.
Romania’s second bitcoin exchange BitcoinXRomania, launched in June 2015 and compliant by KYC guidelines now takes over as the most prominent bitcoin exchange in the country.
According to CoinATMRadar, Romania also hosts four bitcoin ATMs, all in the capital city of Bucharest.
Images from Shutterstock.
