According to data from Asufin, 2gether, a Spanish cryptocurrency platform, has failed to recover from the current downturn and will close its doors. This leaves 100,000 people homeless. This Wednesday, the company said that it would charge 20 euros for management expenses due to “impossibility” of maintaining the service free. Asufin stated that both the app and website of the platform will be blocked from then on and they won’t be able to manage them.
“After five years of serving the crypto community, it is time to close the private accounts service. The communication states that the lack of resources and crypto winter have prevented us from offering the same quality service as other providers nearby.
2gether becomes the first Spanish platform to stop its activities because of the crypto winter. This term is used in the sector to describe periods such as the current one in which asset prices drop sharply.
Asufin already stated that it will take collective legal actions and will be represented in bankruptcy proceedings.
After suffering a cyberattack that led to the theft of 276 ethers and 114 bitcoins from its accounts, the platform was headlined in August 2020. This is equivalent to 1,183,000,000 euros in cryptocurrencies at today’s exchange rate and 15% of the positions of Your clients.
It didn’t have the funds to pay for what was stolen from clients’ accounts at that time. In January 2021, the startup raised 1.5 million euros in financing rounds. This was to strengthen the company’s security and to help cover its business model.
“Many things have occurred in the crypto industry because there have been many project promotors with bad intentions historically and they have not shown themselves when a problem has emerged, they have closed their eyes and closed,” Pablo Ferraz, the former CEO of the company, said in an interview to Europa Press.
The platform also partnered with fintech Fellow Funders at the end July to provide innovative alternative investment and financing solutions that were adapted to new regulatory frameworks. This partnership focuses on the creation of high-value products and services. .
2gether isn’t the only one: Vauld, a cryptocurrency trading platform and lending platform, ordered Monday to immediately block withdrawals, transactions, and deposits while it studies possible restructuring options. Customers in recent days.
Voyager Digital, on its part, availed voluntary this Wednesday of Chapter 11 protection under the United States Bankruptcy Law to help with the restructuring of the company.
The crypto winter affects not just the small exchanges. Binance, one the largest cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide, decided to temporarily suspend bitcoin withdrawals on June 13, the same day Celsius suspended them due to “extreme circumstances.”
This is a long list and there is no sign of improvement for the sector. Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency, was quoted at 11 a.m. on Thursday at 20,496 USD (20,107 Euros), 1.52% higher than yesterday, but far from its maximum. Meanwhile, ethereum was exchanged at that time at 1,176 dollars (1.153 euros), 3.02% greater.
Thousands of jobs have been lost due to the recent falls. Bitpanda, an Austrian platform, announced that it would reduce its workforce to 730 employees a few weeks back. Coinbase also laid off 1,100 workers while other platforms like Gemini had to cut 10%.
