Bittrex Exchange Is Shutting Down Down In 31 Countries

An announcement on October 18 shows that the major Bittrex exchange is shutting down and withdrawing services from 31 countries by the end of this month. The cryptocurrency exchange announced that its Europe-based international trading platform is in a weak position – and cited regulatory uncertainty as the main reason behind the move.

However, it still seems that Bittrex, which is originally based out of Seattle, Washington, has little to no presence in the vast majority of the markets that are affected by this seemingly large-scale withdrawal. This perhaps includes Venezuela and a couple of other countries.

As the official announcement shows, traders using the Bittrex exchange will lose all access to their accounts on October 29, starting at 19:00 UTC/21:00 CEST. The affected customers have until that then to withdraw their deposits.

The Bitcoin and altcoin news today show that customers must have a balance equal or higher than the minimum withdrawal limit to be able to retrieve their stash. In other words, this means that users must have at least thrice the amount in their accounts as the withdrawal fee. This is a rule that applies to all coins and tokens.

As it stands, the withdrawal fee on the Bittrex exchange is 0.0005 and therefore, to be able to withdraw, users must have deposits which are worth at least .00150001 BTC. Furthermore, the move affects users based in these 31 countries:

Afghanistan, Egypt, Bosnia-Herzegowina, Botswana, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

The crypto news today show that the Bittrex exchange will also initiate a downsizing process. Before getting started with the withdrawal process, customers must generate an address using the same wallet where they would like to get their deposits. There is even an informative how-to guide with detailed instructions so that users understand the process.

As we reported before, Bittrex had significantly downsized its trading options for US-based traders on the platform by delisting 42 coins and tokens. All of this will affect users in a negative way and potentially impact the crypto market as a whole.