Bittrex Blocking Trading in 32 Coins for US Traders
The major cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex published a blog post on June 07, announcing that it would be blocking the trading of 32 cryptocurrencies for its United States-based users. The blog stated that after June 21, cryptocurrency traders based out of the US would not be able to access 32 of the coins listed on its platform, including STORJ (Storj) and QTUM (Quantum).
Getting Rid of these Cryptocurrencies
In its blog post, Bittrex stated that all its US-based customers would be contacted by email, which would give details on what users could and could not do with the 32 different digital assets.
Some of the options suggested by the crypto exchange include selling these assets for those that will still be available for trade in the United States, moving these assets of the exchange’s platform, and cancelling orders related to the trade of these coins.
The exchange stated that once the change came into effect on June 21, customers in the US would be unable to buy or sell these cryptocurrencies and all open orders related to these 32 cryptos would be cancelled.
Bittrex stated that there would still be a certain amount of limited functionality for traders in the US, but the assets would be moved to the exchange’s Bittrex International platform. The crypto exchange explained that US-based customers would still be able to withdraw or continue to hold these assets in their Bittrex wallets as long as these coins were supported on the Bittrex International platform.
The change on the Bittrex platform for US-based users would in no way affect the availability of the markets on Bittrex International for non-US-based customers.
Bittrex International is the exchange’s European affiliate. This platform lists tokens that are not available to users in the US, are also not available on the Bittrex platform.
Speculation on the Blocks
The announcement by Bittrex came just one day after another major US-based cryptocurrency exchange – Poloniex – experienced a loss of over $13 million because of a flash crash in Clams (CLAM), a little-known cryptocurrency.
The exchange decided to socialize the loss, meaning the loss was distributed among all the platform’s users, even those would had not been directly trading in CLAM. This led to the exchange becoming the center of a controversy, where it was threatened with lawsuits.
While there is no overt evidence of a link between Poloniex’s loss and the blocking of similar cryptocurrencies on Bittrex, there is speculation that Bittrex decided to block these smaller cryptos to prevent something similar taking place on its platform.