Line closes crypto exchange to focus on blockchain and LN token

Japanese messaging giant Line has decided to shut down its cryptocurrency exchange business amid the ongoing crypto winter.

Line-owned crypto exchange Bitfront officially announced on November 27th a plan to completely shut down the platform by March 2023.

According to the statement, the shutdown was driven by the continued cryptocurrency bear market and other issues in the crypto industry.

Despite the exchange’s shutdown, Line will continue to operate its other blockchain ventures, including the Line blockchain ecosystem and the Link (LN) token, notes the announcement, which states:

“Despite our efforts to overcome the challenges of this rapidly evolving industry, we have regrettably decided that we must close Bitfront in order to continue growing the Line blockchain ecosystem and the Link token economy.”

Bitfront also emphasized that the decision to close the exchange was made in the “best interest” of the Line ecosystem and is not related to the ongoing industry scandal involving the FTX exchange.

According to the announcement, Bitfront will take a gradual approach to suspending its services, stopping registrations and credit card payments on November 28. The platform then plans to suspend further deposits and interest payments of LN interest products and resume the related LN withdrawals by mid-December.

By the end of December, Bitfront aims to stop all cryptocurrency and fiat deposits along with trading suspension and cancellation of open orders. Total suspension of withdrawals is planned for March 31, 2023, while customers will still be able to claim their assets in various jurisdictions in the United States.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Line launched its proprietary crypto exchange in 2018 as a Singapore-based business. Originally known as BitBox, the company was renamed Bitfront and moved to the US in February 2020. The exchange has scaled back some of its operations in recent years, suspending services in South Korea in August 2021.

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Despite being a smaller crypto exchange, Bitfront has significant trading volumes at the time of writing. According to data from CoinGecko, Bitfront’s daily trading volume is $55 million, and the exchange trades a total of five cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Link, Litecoin (LTC), and Tether (USDT).