Court approves liquidation of Bitcoin exchange Bittrex in the United States

The cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has obtained court approval for a revised bankruptcy plan and winding down operations in the United States.

Judge Brendan Shannon proposed to the parties a refined order that provides for the liquidation of the company to satisfy remaining creditor claims.

“As noted in the hearing transcript, the court has decided that it will adopt the revised proposed order, which takes into account unofficial comments from the SEC,” the document said.

In April, Bittrex announced the winding down of its operations in the United States, citing regulatory uncertainty. Following this, the SEC filed a lawsuit against the company over securities-law violations.

On May 8, the exchange filed for bankruptcy in the United States. Bittrex said its assets and liabilities total between $500 million and $1 billion. The number of creditors exceeds 100,000.

The plan for restitution proposed by the company ran into opposition from authorities. One reason was the exchange’s outstanding debt to FinCEN in the amount of $5 million. This is part of the roughly $30 million that Bittrex agreed to pay in October 2022 as part of settling accusations of violating the U.S. sanctions regime.

In April, the company and its former CEO William Shihara reached an agreement with the SEC. Under the agreement, the defendants agreed to pay $24 million in the form of ill-gotten gains, interest and civil penalties.

The international platform Bittrex Global continues to operate outside the United States. According to CoinGecko, over the past 24 hours the platform’s trading volume stood at about $2.346 billion. The exchange supports trading 382 cryptocurrencies across 599 pairs.

According to The Block, in January 2018 Bittrex’s share of the U.S. market reached 22.75%. However by 2021 the figure had fallen below 1%. Coinbase leads the segment with 37.67%.

Earlier this year, in June the SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, and in February the U.S. crypto exchange Kraken settled the agency’s claims by paying $30 million.