Exclusive: FTX Europe Launches New Website for Customer Balance Withdrawal
FTX Europe, the European subsidiary of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, has created a new website for its customers to withdrawal their balance from the platform. The new domain name, https://ftxeurope.eu/, was approved by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySE).
Finance Magnates learned the new domain will offer no products or any other services apart from balance withdrawal.
«Please be informed that our new domain, www.ftxeurope.eu, has been approved by our regulator CySEC as you have well identified. The website will only be used for all FTX EU LTD clients to be able to claim their FIAT balances. There will be no services or products offered via this website,» FTX Europe told Finance Magnates via email.
Finance Magnates’ check on the new domain brings up a dialogue box asking users to «log in to your FTX EU account in order to see your balance and to request a withdrawal.» On the other hand, www.ftx.com/eu remains unresponsive at this time.
FTX EU’s new domain for withdrawal of customer balance.
FTX EU, a solvent entity, is now paying out its customers on https://t.co/MEw8Oz8vTk.
Note: Almost none of FTX’s EU citizens are FTX EU users, because for some reason, FTX EU only onboarded customers registered from March 2022. pic.twitter.com/gu56Vysvlc
— FTX 2.0pium (FTX Creditor) (@AFTXcreditor) March 30, 2023
Finance Magnates’ check on CySEC’s public register shows https://ftxeurope.eu is an approved domain owned by FTX EU.
FTX EU’s current profile on CySEC register showing the approved domains.
Finance Magnates also found that CySEC recently earlier this month modified the public profile of FTX EU on its register.
CySEC modified FTX EU’s profile on its public register on the 7th of this month.
FTX Europe Faces CySEC Suspension
FTX EU, which is headquartered in Switzerland and has regional headquarters based in Cyprus, first gained CySEC approval in March 2022 to offer regulated cryptocurrency products in Europe. The company had announced it would provide its services through the domain ftx.com/eu.
However, in the aftermath of the collapse of FTX in November last year, CySEC suspended the operating license of FTX EU which obtained full authorization as a Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) two months earlier. The CIF license enables FTX EU to offer crypto derivatives products and not in direct exchange of digital assets.
CySEC said it had suspended the subsidiary’s license for violations of the country’s regulated markets laws by having unsuitable members on its Management Board and not meeting the organization’s requirements for safeguarding clients’ assets.
Additionally, the regulator explained that the decision was taken “for the protection of investors and the orderly operation of the market,” and gave the subsidiary firm one month to take necessary actions to comply with the provisions.
However, in late December, CySEC extended the suspension of FTX EU’s license to March 2023, in order to allow the subsidiary firm “to proceed with the necessary actions in order to comply with the relevant provisions of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2017.”
Announcing the extension, CySEC said the subsidiary could “complete all its own transactions and those of its clients which are before it, in accordance with client instructions.” Moreover, the firm could return all funds and financial instruments belonging to clients, the regulator added.
Finance Magnates’ check on the CySEC register shows that the FTX EU Limited license is still under suspension. However, the public profile shows that the company owns two approved domains: www.ftx.com/eu and https://ftxeurope.eu/.