The bankrupt U.S. arm of crypto exchange Bittrex will open for customer withdrawals Thursday, CoinDesk has reported.
The move follows a Tuesday ruling in Delaware bankruptcy court by Judge Brendan Shannon, who said the exchange can “permit their customers holding undisputed, noncontingent, and liquidated claims to withdraw cryptocurrency assets and fiat currency from the Debtors’ trading platform to the extent of such claims.”
The U.S. arm of Bittrex holds $50 million in customer cash and $250 million in customer crypto, its lawyer, Susheel Kirpalani, told the court after filing for bankruptcy in May. The filing came six weeks after the firm announced it would cease U.S. operations because of regulatory uncertainty and three weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged it with operating an unregistered securities exchange.
Bittrex Global, which is headquartered in Liechtenstein and serves non-U.S. customers, remains unaffected by the bankruptcy.
Bittrex’s plan to repay customers was challenged by the U.S. government last week because the exchange still owes millions of dollas over sanctions violations, including $5 million to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, court filings show.
Bittrex is one of many crypto sphere players that have filed for bankruptcy in the past year amid market volatility, including Celsius, FTX, BlockFi, and Genesis.
The list grew longer this week, still, with the bankruptcy of Banq, a subsidiary of crypto custodian Prime Trust, which filed for bankruptcy in Nevada on Tuesday, according to filings reported by CoinDesk. Crypto custodian BitGo announced plans to acquire Banq’s parent company Prime Trust on June 8.
