The exchange, whose founder and CEO resigned three weeks ago, is under cloud cover as Bitcoin climbs toward a November 2021 high of $69,000.
Offshore cryptocurrency exchange BitForex went offline over the weekend, leaving its six million self-reported users in the dark after a promised leadership change failed to materialize. BitForex stopped updating prices on Friday, and the website went dark over the weekend. His X channel and Telegram channel have not been updated since February 20th.
Additionally, a shared cryptocurrency wallet linked to Bitforex.com had $56.5 million leaked on February 23, according to a prominent cryptocurrency investigator. Zack XBT on Twitter and Telegram.
The exchange did not respond to an email request for information on its status. According to Pitchbook, in 2018, Bitforex's only sources of venture capital funding were Byte Capital and Consensus Lab. He did not respond to requests for comment.
BitForex, which was founded in Hong Kong six years ago and operates as an unregulated offshore entity, regularly generated as much as $2.5 billion in cryptocurrency trading volume each day until last week, according to a self-disclosed exchange, and $6 million in daily cryptocurrency trading volume. It claims to have served more than one customer. Data published last week by CoinMarketCap.com. Other estimates of BitForex.com's trading volume put it at over $2 billion daily across its 387 crypto trading pairs, although some trading pairs like CryptoRank are much lower than that.
BitForex trading volume estimation Millions of dollars each day for the week of February 19, 2024
On January 31, the exchange's founder and CEO Xinyao (Jason) Luo announced his resignation, with a new management team “poised to take the reins” and “lead BitForex to an even bigger horizon.” “I will lead you to this.”
This cryptic message isn't the only mystery surrounding the company.
The big question to answer is why the exchange stopped operating when the crypto market was trending upwards. Bitcoin BTC just topped $57,000 for the first time since 2021 and is poised to hit a new all-time high later this year as inflows into new exchange-traded funds based on the token's spot price continue to increase. There is a possibility that there are. The high-profile exchange failures of companies like FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis in 2022 occurred during a bear market when irresponsible lending and other misconduct seemed to be resolved. .
A clue to BitForex's situation may lie in its business in Japan. According to data from web traffic analysis firm SimilarWeb, 74% of BitForex.com visitors in November 2023 came from Japan, where the company was not authorized to provide the service. The next most common jurisdictions were India (7%) and Turkey (3%).
BitForex.com geographical traffic sources From January 2021 to January 2024
The exchange saw an 85% drop in traffic, from 392,000 in December and 12.5 million in November to just 176,000 web visits in January. A possible explanation for this decline is a crackdown by Japanese authorities. forbes We contacted Japan's main cryptocurrency regulator, the Japan Financial Services Agency, but did not receive a response.
The apparent collapse of BitForex highlights the challenges faced by crypto investors looking for a safe, reliable and regulated exchange. forbes announced its ranking of the top 60 exchanges in March 2022, but BitForex was not included in the list. However, Coin Paprika and CryptoRank rated this exchange as the 3rd and 27th best exchange in the world as of 2024. Considering the low reliability of this exchange, other exchanges rated it completely out of the top 100.
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