At cryptocurrency marketregardless of the “mini bull run,” it is still far from its 2021 level, with companies laying off staff and some even closing operations. The latest on the list of companies to stop service is Coinbase. According to a blog post recently published by Coinbase, the crypto exchange company says it will shut down operating in Japan.
The exchange said the suspension of operations in Japan will not affect its other official branches around the globe. Japanese Coinbase customers will cancel their crypto and fiat holdings on February 16.
Coinbase ended operations in Japan, citing market conditions
Published on January 18, Coinbase stated in an announcement that ceasing operations in Japan was a difficult decision. But, Coinbase will investigate its business in Japan and stop transactions with customers located in that country.
Customers who fail to cancel their crypto holdings before February 16 must coordinate with the Legal Affairs Bureau to retrieve the balance. The company will convert all remaining crypto holdings to Japanese yen (JPY). According to Coinbase, the reason for closing operations in Japan is due to extreme market conditions and plans to reduce operating costs in 2023.
Coinbase VP Nana Murugesan and Coinbase Japan CEO Nao Kitazawa said, “Due to changes in the market environment, we have made the difficult decision to review our current business in Japan and end transactions with existing customers. However, we are committed to making this transition fully smoothly for our valued customers.
In addition to giving a date for withdrawing funds, it also provides various options for Japanese customers to withdraw all their crypto holdings from the exchange. According to the digital asset exchange company, customers can withdraw crypto assets to their Coinbase Wallet, another hosted wallet, or other cryptocurrency exchanges.
Coinbase Makes Headlines In New Week
This isn’t the first Coinbase news to hit the headlines in recent weeks. A week ago, the exchange laid off around 1,000 employees as part of a critical strategy to weather the crypto winter. As reported by Bitcoinist, this is the third round of company layoffs as the macroeconomic situation and pressure continue to decline in the nascent sector.
Additionally, crypto exchanges also made headlines earlier this week as XRP investors filed a class-action lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchanges. The reason behind the lawsuit is because of the company Exceptions to distributing Flare Network Tokens (FLR) for XRP holders.
While the company continues to make negative headlines over the past few weeks, the COIN stock price on the exchange has continued its bullish trend, ending Tuesday with an 8% increase in value and up nearly 45% in the last five days. .
The price of COIN is currently hovering around $54.14 at the time of writing, up 8.32% over the previous 24 hours.
Option images from Freepik, charts from TradingView