Romania’s first bitcoin exchange BTCXchange closes a month after being put up for sale
The first order-book bitcoin exchange to launch in Romania shut down its operations this week, almost a month after it was first put up for sale.
BTCXchange closed on Monday after failing to find a buyer, local news group Bihon reported, after being put up for sale on 18 August. However, the cause of the closure has not been publicly announced.
The platform emailed customers on 4 September asking them to withdraw their funds from the exchange and sent a follow-up email on 9 September asking them to withdraw all their remaining money.
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The exchange was originally launched in December 2013, but a year later closed for several months, allegedly following a dispute between its founder, Horea Vuscan, and the group’s chief programmer.
In August 2015 BTCXchange was launched again on a newly-built platform.
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The bitcoin price was hovering around $608 today, according to the Bitstamp exchange. This is still three per cent lower than a recent high reached on Sunday, when it peaked at more than $628.
It has been trading above $600 since the beginning of September, after slumping 20 per cent in early August on news that Hong Kong-based exchange Bitfinex had been hacked.