Wyre, a crypto payments firm from San Francisco founded in 2013, is closing its operations amid the continuing crypto winter. The company’s management believes that it will help protect the interests of users. Wyre has asked its clients to withdraw their assets until July 14.
Attempts to survive the crypto winter
The crypto winter and market turbulence have affected many companies. Wyre, a crypto payments firm, is one of them. It first faced significant problems in September 2022 when Bolt Financial scrapped its planned purchase of Wyre. In early January, company announced withdrawal limits due to the worsened market conditions.
“Due to market conditions, we made this decision to protect the best interest of our key stakeholders and customers. This decision is not due to any regulatory agency direction. Wyre continues to secure customer assets,” Wyre wrote on Twitter.
The company was unable to avoid shutting down
In January, Ioannis Giannaros, the CEO of Wyre, allegedly announced to his employees via e-mail that the company would be liquidated and stop providing services that very month. Later, he changed his mind and sent another e-mail that said, “We’re still operating but will be scaling back to plan our next steps.”
A week later, Wyre announced that it was modifying its withdrawal policy. The withdrawals were limited to no more than 90% of the funds in each customer account. The company explained that this policy was in the best interest of the community. Yet a week after that, the restrictions were lifted.
In April, Stephen Cheng was appointed permanent CEO, and the company relaunched its partnership with MetaMask which had earlier announced that Wyre would be deleted from its mobile app.
Wyre’s decision was preceded by prolonged speculation about the company’s future. Previously, the management denied rumors of the company’s shutdown and insisted that it was merely scaling back its operations. Wyre explains that the decision resulted not from regulatory pressure but from difficult market environment and tough competition.
Currently, Wyre will proceed with liquidating assets for its investors, having offered anyone who is willing to acquire the company’s assets to contact its representatives. The management has assured its customers that it would initiate a process for recovering assets that will remain on the platform after July 14 and promised to provide detailed information on its website and blog in the following weeks. Founded in 2013, Wyre will be closing after ten years of operation.
