- Wyre shuts down months after losing the proposition of being acquired by Bolt.
- Chaos for crypto platform, Wyre, started in January in a rumored uncertainty with Juno and MetaMask.
- The Bear market continues to take crypto platforms down with it.
Wyre, a crypto firm based in San Francisco, has now begun the process of shutting down and has notified the public that interested parties can now begin inquiring about purchasing their assets. The crypto firm is closing down after almost a decade in business and has cited the challenges of the bear market as the reason behind this move.
In addition, the firm mentioned the present state of the regulatory agency directly in the United States is another reason behind their decision to shut down. In a blog post, Wyre stated that they had made the difficult decision to close down the firm, which was in the best interest of their key stakeholders and customers.
They also added that Wyre continues to secure customer assets and asked customers with assets on the platform to continue to withdraw them. After the required date, Wyre would create a separate process for customers to access the assets still on the platform.
The team at Wyre also suggested that the firm’s assets are now up for sale and noted that if anyone was interested in acquiring the platform’s subsidiaries’ assets, they could reach out to 88 partners.
Wyre has reportedly been shutting down since a one-click checkout company, Bolt, canceled their plans to acquire Wyre for $1.5 billion in September 2022. In January, Wyre found themselves in trouble when fiat-to-crypto on-ramp solution provider, Juno, urged their users to get their crypto off the Juno platform and self-custody due to a rumored uncertainty surrounding their custodial partner, Wyre, and the following day saw MetaMask also revoking their support for Wyre’s crypto payments service over the same rumored delay.
A few days after the drama with Juno and MetaMask, Wyre imposed a 90% withdrawal limit for their users but lifted it soon after on January 13 after it had secured financing from an unnamed strategic partner and suggested that the crypto firm had been on its way to recovery. The platform also laid off about 75% of its workforce in January.
Conclusion
The shutdown of Wyre is now added to an ever-growing list of crypto and blockchain firms that have all crumbled under the intense weight of a long-standing bear market, which has carried on for almost a year.
May alone saw crypto fintech firm, Unbanked, Lightning network payment platform, BottlePay, crypto exchange, HotBit, non-fungible token platform, Teressa and Digital Currency Group’s institutional trading platform, TradeBlock, all choosing to shut down.
Before the bear market finally ends, there could be a high chance many crypto firms would pack up at this current rate, and with hacks becoming more rampant in the crypto industry, there is a higher chance of these firms crumbling under the weight.
