Romania-based cryptocurrency exchange BTCxChange has announced that it is winding up its operations in May.
The Romanian crypto exchange which is owned by Max Nicula announced in January this year that its bank accounts had been closed by Idea Bank. So far four banks have closed bank accounts owned by BTCxChange over the past year amid other problems that the Romanian crypto exchange has been facing. The BTCxChange team notified its clients about the closure of the exchange through its website, urging them to withdraw their balances before the start of May. Trading operations on the exchange were halted on February 1.
This is not the first time that BTCxChange has had problems. The Romanian digital currency exchange notified customers to withdraw their funds in a different instance on December 19th, 2014 after its lead programmer allegedly held its servers hostage. Back then, the exchange claimed that it had been locked out and could not access the servers. In a separate incident, BTCxChange had a period of closure that lasted one month after its previous owner Horea Oradea Vuscan announced a sale on August 18, 2016.
Upon reopening on November 16, 2016, under Nicula’s ownership, it was announced that there were some major changes such as improved quality of services, safety, and user experience. Unfortunately, it seems this did very little to secure the future of the exchange. Nicula shared in one of his written statements that it previously made the decision to stop pursuing new bank accounts in case the ones that it had were shut down. He also revealed that the decision was made because the constant bank account changes were slowing down the speed at which the exchange was deploying its services.
Nicula also revealed that the exchange was in a difficult situation because the only way to improve its volumes was to invest in marketing, launch an API, and lowering its fees. However, this would be resource-intensive, meaning no short-term profits. Nicula also added that such sacrifices did not make much sense especially because the exchange does not have long-term stability in its banking solutions.
It currently looks like this time there might not be another come-back for BTCxChange in the future given its past. Nicula expressed gratitude to all the clients that have enjoyed the platform and added that he hoped that the crypto exchange left a positive impression. He also hopes that more entrepreneurs will continue to benefit from the opportunities in the cryptocurrency space.
