San Francisco-based crypto-payments firm Wyre is shutting down after nearly 10 years in business, citing bear market financial woes and nothing to do with the hawkish “targeting of regulatory agencies” in the United States.
In the June 16 blog postThe company said it made the difficult decision to close to “protect the best interests of our key shareholders and customers”.
“Wyre continues to secure customers’ assets. If you have assets on the Wyre platform, you can continue to withdraw them through the Wyre dashboard until Friday 14 July. We will then have a separate process to recover the assets remaining on the platform,” the firm said.
After nearly ten years, Wyre is calling it quits. Given market conditions, we have decided to protect the best interests of our key shareholders and customers. This decision is not due to any regulatory agency regulation. Wyre continues to secure customers’ assets.
— Wyre (@sendwyre) June 16, 2023
The Wyre team also suggested that its assets are now up for sale, noting that: “If you are interested in acquiring the assets of Wyre or its subsidiaries, please contact 88 Partners.”
The firm reportedly bypassed the channel from Bolt, which did one click canceled your plans to acquire Wyre for $1.5 billion in September 2022.
On January 4, 2023, trouble began brewing with fiat-to-crypto on-ramp solution provider Juno, which urged its users to pull their crypto assets off the Juno platform and into their own management due to the reported “uncertainty” surrounding its custodial partner Wyre.
The next day, MetaMask too discontinued support for Wyre’s crypto payment services in the same matter.
Just days later, Wyre introduced a 90% withdrawal limit for all of its users, but promptly lifted the 90% limit on January 13 after securing funding from an unnamed “strategic partner,” suggesting the firm is on the mend.
Wyre also reportedly had laid down 75 employees lost their jobs in January.
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Wyre joins an ever-growing list of crypto and blockchain firms and projects that have collapsed under the pressure of a prolonged bear market.
Only in May crypto fintech firm, Unbanked; Lightning Network payment platform, BottlePay; crypto exchange, HotBit; non-fungible token platform, Terressa; and Digital Currency Group’s institutional trading platformTradeBlock, all off.
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