The Cyprus securities regulator has been reported to be suspending the cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s licence after a liquidity constraint led to a withdrawal hold.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) granted FTX clearance to use its domain in March after it acquired the local business K-DNA Financial Services LTD. Later, the organisation was renamed FTX EU LTD. FTX EU announced in September that it has obtained a CySEC licence to function as a Cyprus investment firm.
At the time, the exchange stated that the CySEC licence allowed the company to “serve the whole European Economic Area,” which is made up of the EU as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
The Bahamas-based multibillion-dollar crypto firm, whose collapse was caused by illiquidity, had its assets frozen by the nation’s securities regulator on Thursday in an effort to “preserve assets and stabilise the company.”
Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.com fell catastrophically this week as investor faith in the exchange waned and it became clear that the company had a multibillion-dollar balance sheet deficiency. US authorities are looking into FTX, which is in desperate need of rescue money, and Bankman-Fried personally.