Finland Digital Asset Firm Shuts Down After 10 Years

Established in June 2012, Finland's peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange LocalBitcoins announced that it is closing its doors after a decade in business.

LocalBitcoins officially states that it can no longer offer any BTC trading services after several unsuccessful attempts to survive the ongoing harsh crypto winter. Unfortunately, LocalBitcoins was greatly harmed by the cryptocurrency turbulence in 2022, followed by the domino effect after the collapse of Bahamas-based FTX, which disrupted the entire sector.

The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency business decreased by 64.1% from $2.3 trillion at the beginning of the year to $829 billion by year's end as a result of the protracted crypto winter, the continued decline in digital asset prices, and more negative factors.

“We have regretfully concluded that LocalBitcoins can no longer provide its Bitcoin trading service,” LocalBitcoins said.

LocalBitcoins' customers have been urged to remove their money from the platform within the next year or earlier in anticipation of the company's shutdown. On Thursday, the P2P BTC exchange announced that it would stop accepting new users for its platform starting now.

The business also announced that on the 16th of this month, it would stop allowing BTC trading on its platform and prohibit users from using its wallets. However, withdrawals are still allowed as the company will work through to process and return the investors' funds.

Additionally, as of 17th January 2023, customers of LocalBitcoins will no longer be able to use the trading or wallet services; instead, they will only be allowed to log in to the platform to withdraw their Bitcoins.