An offshore crypto exchange, BitForex, has gone offline over the weekend, leaving its reported six million users in the dark after a promised change in leadership failed to materialize. The exchange, founded in Hong Kong six years ago, stopped updating prices on Friday and its website went dark over the weekend. Its X and Telegram channels have not been updated since February 20.
Additionally, a shared crypto wallet linked to BitForex saw the exit of $56.5 million on February 23, according to a prominent crypto sleuth on social media. The exchange did not respond to email requests for information about its status.
BitForex claims to have served more than six million customers and, up until last week, routinely generated as much as $2.5 billion of crypto trading volume daily. However, estimates of its trading volume varied across different sources.
The exchange's founder and CEO announced his departure on January 31, stating that a new leadership team was set to take over. The reasons behind the sudden halt in operations remain unclear, especially during a time when the crypto market is experiencing an upswing.
Data analysis revealed that a significant portion of BitForex's web traffic came from Japan, where the company was not authorized to offer its services. The decline in traffic to the exchange in recent months could be linked to potential regulatory actions in Japan.
The collapse of BitForex underscores the challenges faced by crypto investors in finding safe, reliable, and regulated exchanges. While some data firms rated BitForex highly, others excluded it from their top rankings due to concerns about its reliability.
As the crypto market continues to evolve, the incident involving BitForex serves as a reminder of the importance of due diligence and caution when engaging with cryptocurrency exchanges.
