Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, Bitspark, has shut down its operations following the coronavirus outbreak and the continued protests in the region.
Bitspark Shuts Down After Five Years
Bitspark, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange service providers in Hong Kong, has announced that it will shut down its operations due to its non-success with its restructuring aims. This news comes as Hong Kong remains engulfed with ongoing protests and the coronavirus outbreak in the region.
The company will be closing its operations by next month, despite recording massive growth with its Cash Point product. The CEO maintained that the ongoing protests and coronavirus outbreaks had not affected the performance of the platform. However, the CEO added that the internal restructuring within the company didn’t work out as they anticipated.
Bitspark has been around for six years now, and its closure comes as a surprise after the company recorded success with the launch of its Cash Point product. The CEO, George Harrap, stated that they would be closing shop on March 4. He added that, “This decision was not taken lightly, particularly due to the excellent performance we have seen since the release of our Cash Point product late last year which has seen 400% month-on-month (MoM) growth.”
The services will be limited between now and the closure date. Harrap added that customers can contact their support team between now and then to request a withdrawal of their funds on the platform. He maintained that Bitspark would remain liquid until the 4thof March. Once the closure day arrives, logins will be disabled for 90 days.
Bitspark Recording Exceptional Growth
Before this unexpected shutdown, Bitspark announced that it was working on launching a wide range of products. By the end of 2019, the exchange had 144 trading pairs in 12 currencies, while it also had stablecoins in HKD and PHP.
Bitspark didn’t have a shortage of customers as their platform is accessed by customers from over 30 countries across the globe. Back then, in 2019, the company stated that, “Next year, as we integrate with ERC20, Bitspark will be the primary provider of cash-to-crypto services for everything related to the Ethereum network, including hard wallets like Trezor and the global DeFi movement.”
Over the past few years, Bitspark has achieved some incredible results. Harrap pointed out that Bitspark was the first platform to carry out end to end remittances via Bitcoin in 2014. Bitspark was also the first Asian cryptocurrency exchange to list over 20 tokens. It was the first to launch stablecoins for exotic currencies, first Asian exchange for having insurance coverage, and the only cash-based fiat on/off-ramp in the cryptocurrency space.
Bitspark has been around since 2014. It is a web-based platform that allows people to send and receive payment using digital currencies. The company ended by saying, “We were the first in the world to send a cash-in, cash-out bitcoin transfer between Hong Kong and the Philippines – it was the first use case the industry saw of crypto being used for utility above all else.”