The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has given FTX’s European subsidiary a one-month deadline to return money to users. This follows a liquidity crisis that affected user withdrawals and jeopardized the investments of a large number of players in the bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem and other cryptocurrencies.
According to a statement issued by CySECthe FTX subsidiary’s authorization to operate in Europe is “entirely suspended.”“. This, in the context of the scandal generated by the financial mismanagement of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), now the exchange’s former CEO.
Specifically, the letter states that the license suspension is due to “suspicions of alleged violations of the Law on Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets in effect since 2017.”
Failure to comply with this law is considered a sign that the company does not meet the necessary conditions to continue its business, the regulator says. Therefore, suspension is applied in order to. safeguard investors’ assets.
As a result, the CySEC Set a deadline of 30 days for the company FTX EU LTD (FTX Europe) to take the necessary actions to enable it to return customers’ goods.
The regulator’s decision was officially announced on the afternoon of November 11. Although according to reported According to unnamed Bloomberg sources, FTX Europe has reportedly been asked by the Commission to suspend its operations as early as Wednesday, Nov. 9.
The collapse comes just months after the license was granted.
In March of this year, FTX had obtained. the CySEC Approval for its domain www.ftx.com/eu.
The authorization was granted to FTX after it acquired a Cyprus-based financial services company, K-DNA Financial Services LTD, later renamed FTX EU LTD.
Last September it was reported that FTX EU LTD had. received the license from CySEC Operating as an investment firm in Cyprus. A fact that opened the door to provide services throughout the European Economic Areaincluding Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
FTX has thus formalized its activities in Europe, operating with an office in Switzerland and an additional base in Cyprus. Although CySEC has only authorized the platform to provide investment services in cryptocurrency derivatives and other financial instruments, not allowing it to trade cryptoassets directly..
In the September press release announcing the license, Sam Bankman Fried highlighted it as a major achievement. “Obtaining this license in the European Union is an important step toward achieving our goal of becoming one of the most regulated exchanges in the world,” he said at the time.
Now, in the midst of the exchange debacle, European newspapers speculate on the global ramifications of FTX Europe and the more than 130 SBF-owned companies. Their goal is the relationships of these organizations with each other and with regulators..
Media reports, such as the Italian cryptocurrency.co.uk site, point out that FTX’s European subsidiary operated with the same structure and staff as K-DNA Financial Services LTD, an unrelated company. cryptocurrencies of which FTX inherited the license.
As reported by CryptoNews, most of the FTX conglomerate of companies will be filed for bankruptcy this November 11. This follows the unsuccessful efforts SBF’s unsuccessful efforts to avoid total collapse.