Crypto Payment Company Wyre ‘Winding-down’ Cites Bad-Market Phase

On June 16th, Friday, through an official blog-post, the crypto payment company, Wyre announced major updates on their operations. According to the payment company, “after nearly a decade, the company is winding down.” Citing “market conditions,” the company made the decision “to protect the best interest of their key stakeholders and customers.”

After nearly a decade, Wyre is winding down. Due to market conditions, we made this decision to protect the best interest of our key stakeholders and customers. This decision is not due to any regulatory agency direction. Wyre continues to secure customer assets.
— Wyre (@sendwyre) June 16, 2023

Amid regulatory issues in the U.S. crypto market, the company further clarifies that “this decision is not due to any regulatory agency direction.”

Wyre, which was once valued at $1.5 Billion, also shared a Tweet on Friday that it will be shutting its operations across the world. The company said that the safety of the customer’s assets and the stakeholders is their priority in the light of which they can withdraw their assets till July 14th.

However, the crypto payment company will come up with a separate process to tackle the assets remaining after July 14th.

Canceled Deals, FUD

Notably, the company had been struggling ever since Bolt, a checkout and shopper network company, canceled the deal to acquire Wyre back in September 2022.

Moreover, on January 4th, 2023, Juno, a crypto banking firm, urged its users to get their assets off its platform to self-custody due to the “unstable condition of its custodial partner, Wyre.”

On January 5th, 2023, MetaMask, the cryptocurrency wallet, also removed Wyre from its mobile aggregator. After a few days, Wyre imposed a 90% withdrawal limit for all of its users which was subsequently removed on January 13th, 2023, after it received a series B funding of an undisclosed amount from “an anonymous” investor. Reportedly, the company laid off around 75 employees in January this year.

Late last month, Unbanked, a crypto fintech firm that provides payments services and crypto custody, was one of the companies that shut down due to bearish market conditions.

Lack of regulatory clarity remains the primary obstacle for the crypto sector in the United States. This eventually affects the whole crypto market while some crypto firms take the decisions to wind-down their operations.

Amid current crypto market conditions, the global crypto market cap showed an increase over 3% and is currently at $1.07 Trillion, since yesterday. The total crypto market volume over the last one-day is $34.63 Billion, which also makes a 13.53% increase.

About “Wyre”

Wyre is a San Francisco-based crypto and payment infrastructure company that is responsible for the development of various Application Programming Interface (APIs). It was founded by Michael Dunworth and Ioannis Giannaros in 2013.

The company has raised $29.1 Million over 9-funding rounds, receiving the first funding on June 1st, 2014 while the last funding on January 13th, 2023. It has 28 institutional investors and Timothy Cook Draper, an American venture capital investor, being the only angel investor.