The year 2022 is mainly dominated by misery for the crypto industry. The long and deep bear market the industry is going through is clearly starting to take its toll. It all started with the implosion of Terra in May and now Japan’s Bitfront is also announcing that it will close its doors in March 2023, Reuters news agency reports:
Crypto exchange Bitfront shuts down https://t.co/jGHJyVen0O pic.twitter.com/aF5yjLOzfO
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 29, 2022
Who is crypto exchange Bitfront?
Bitfront is a Japanese crypto exchange founded by Line, which is a popular chat application in the country. This does not mean that Line is completely done with the crypto industry.
“Bitfront was founded to enable users to securely store and trade digital assets. […] We regret to close Bitfront in order for the Line blockchain ecosystem to flourish.”
According to the Japanese company. The platform reveals that this decision is a result of the prolonged bear market. Incidentally, Line also says that the collapse of FTX has nothing to do with the decision to close its exchange platform.
In any case, Bitfront has no exposure to FTX, according to Line. At least that seems to be something of good news for users. It appears that Line is making this decision to close its doors in time at a time when it still has sufficient funds to pay back its users.
Heavy crypto bear market
The current bear market the industry is experiencing is already the second longest bear market in crypto history. The largest is still the one from 2013 to 2015. It lasted a total of 415 days. For now, the current bear market is about 380 days long.
In that regard, this bear market has the potential to become the longest and toughest bear market in crypto history. The macroeconomic conditions are still not in favor of bitcoin (BTC) and the collapse of various exchange platforms is not helping either.