Crypto Payments Firm Wyre Winding Down Due to ‘Market Conditions’

Crypto payments firm Wyre announced on Friday that it is set to wind down operations, after nearly a decade in the business.

“Due to market conditions, we made this decision to protect the best interest of our key stakeholders and customers,” the company said in a Twitter post. It added that, “This decision is not due to any regulatory agency direction. Wyre continues to secure customer assets.”

The crypto payments firm will process withdrawals normally until July 14th, after which users will have to enter a “separate process to recover assets”. Details on the process will be posted on their blog at a later date.

Only last year, online payment provider Bolt attempted to buy Wyre for $1.5 billion—the largest non-SPAC acquisition of a crypto firm at the time. However, the deal fell apart only a few months later.

Down to the Wyre

In January, Wyre CEO Ioannis Giannaros told employees via email that he was liquidating the company and planned to terminate services that month. Giannaros downplayed the shutdown allegations in a follow-up email, saying: “We’re still operating but will be scaling back to plan our next steps.”

The next week, the company announced withdrawal limits stating that it was in “the best interest of our community”. Users were only able to withdraw 90% of their funds but this was lifted less than a week later.

In April, Wyre made Stephen Cheng its permanent CEO after a short stint as interim CEO, and announced the relaunch of its partnership with MetaMask. The crypto payments firm’s closure comes 10 years after it was founded in 2013.