European cryptocurrency exchange Yacuna announces closure next month, industry reshuffle may turn into "China-US war"

European cryptocurrency exchange Yacuna has announced that it will shut down next month. The company shared the news with its customers via email this afternoon, asking them to withdraw any remaining funds in their accounts by November 15.

An email from [email protected] mentioned:

“Bitcoin is a wonderful technology and we are proud to have founded one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe, but this is all over now.”

The company said it will process customer withdrawals manually and hopes for their understanding that it may take some time to complete the withdrawal process.

About Yacuna

Yacuna Exchange is headquartered in the UK and was founded by ClickandBuy veteran Andrei Martchouk. Yacuna offers trading in bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, and ultracoin.

In February, the exchange waived all trading and withdrawal fees, purportedly to boost the exchange’s ecosystem.

Mark Caruso, Yacuna’s executive director and chief compliance officer, told CoinDesk:

“We provided a free service because we believed in the disruptive potential of blockchain technology, however, due to a lack of trading volume and the exchange continuing to grow slower than expected, we ultimately made the decision to shut down the service.”

In the email, the group hinted at a possible transition to other projects in the Bitcoin space:

“We hope you will continue to be an integral part of the Bitcoin community and support our future projects,” it said.

Trading Competition

The European exchange market, such as Yacuna and CoinFloor, faces huge competition from well-funded exchanges in China and the United States, which are looking to expand in the region.

In the United States, Coinbase has launched trading services in 28 countries in Europe, and this month, they also added the "instant buy" function in 26 of them.

Circle, which has received $76 million in funding, has also announced its intention to set up a European headquarters in the UK.

In addition, the trading volume occupied by the British pound and the euro is still dwarfed by that of the Chinese yuan. According to data from Bitcoinity, the Chinese yuan accounted for 84% of the total Bitcoin trading yesterday, while the British pound and the euro accounted for less than 3%.