Wyre, a crypto payments platform, shuts down, selling assets

Wyre, a platform facilitating payments with digital currencies, is closing shop due to the ongoing decline in the market. The portal has since its winding-down procedure, stating that potential purchasers interested in acquiring the company’s assets are now invited to express their interest.

Wyre shuts down

After nearly ten years, the San Francisco-based provider of cryptocurrency payment solutions said their decision to wind down follows challenges posed by the bearish market conditions rather than any stringent “regulatory agency directives” in the United States.

In a statement on June 16, the company explained that it had made the difficult decision to shut down to safeguard the best interests of its primary stakeholders and customers.

Wyre assures the security of client funds. Until Friday, July 14, users can access their assets on the Wyre platform through the Wyre dashboard. The company specified that beyond that date, an alternative process would be implemented to retrieve assets remaining on the platform.

Wyre is selling

The Wyre team also hinted at the availability of the company’s assets.

Following the cancellation of Bolt’s intended acquisition of Wyre for $1.5 billion in September 2022, the business has been in a state of decline ever since.

After reports of “uncertainty” surrounding Wyre’s custodial partner surfaced on January 4, 2023, Juno, a provider of fiat-to-cryptocurrency on-ramp solutions, advised its users to transfer their crypto assets from the Juno platform to self-custody.

The next day, MetaMask also ceased to support Wyre’s cryptocurrency payment services for the same reason.

Subsequently, Wyre imposed a 90% withdrawal restriction on all customers, but on January 13, they removed the limitation after securing funding from an undisclosed “strategic partner,” indicating an improvement in their business.

According to reports, 75 employees were laid off from Wyre in January. Due to the prolonged bear market, Wyre joins a growing roster of cryptocurrency and blockchain enterprises and projects that have closed their doors.

In May alone, the crypto fintech company Unbanked, the Lightning Network payments platform BottlePa;, the cryptocurrency exchange HotBit; the non fungible token (NFT) marketplace, Terressa; and the institutional trading portal, TradeBlock, backed by Digital Currency Group (DCG); all ceased operations.