Open Exchange (OPNX) Set to Shut Down All Operations by February 14

In a surprising twist of fate, Open Exchange (OPNX), a cryptocurrency exchange established by the co-founders of the defunct Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), has announced that it will be shutting down all its operations in the next two weeks. According to the announcement shared with the OPNX clients, all trading positions should be closed by February 7, and all the funds should be withdrawn from the exchange by February 14.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency exchange has informed its clients to export the necessary transaction history data before February 14 in case of any discrepancies after the closure. Notably, the cryptocurrency exchange did not reveal the details of its closure, thus significantly impacting its native token OX.

According to the latest market data, OX tokens dropped more than 14 percent in the past 24 hours to trade around $0.0096 at the time of this report. Additionally, the altcoin’s daily trading volume has spiked more than 500 percent to around $5.9 million during the early Asian session on Friday.

Furthermore, more OX investors were rushing to liquidate their positions before the underlying price plummeted further. Interestingly, the OPNX cryptocurrency exchange was established to trade bankruptcy claims including those from FTX, Voyager, and Mt. Gox, among others. However, the company has fallen victim to the same circumstances and failed to obtain market traction.

Open Exchange (OPNX) Closure

The sudden closure of Open Exchange was unexpected in the past few weeks, as the company had recently obtained a virtual asset service provider license in Lithuania, and was focused on expanding into the European market amid the implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. Nonetheless, the Open Exchange had a rocky start as most traders were wary of adopting its products, which were backed by 3AC co-founders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu. Moreover, Singapore’s central bank has previously issued a nine-year ban on both Davies and Zhu to hold any top executive positions.

Meanwhile, 3AC creditors are seeking to recover about $1.3 billion from the dual, which could have resulted in the closure of the OPNX cryptocurrency exchange. With the cryptocurrency market in the early stages of a macro bull market, the closure of an exchange that survived the 2023 downturns does not seem the best option if not under regulatory pressure.

Market Picture

The closure of the OPNX cryptocurrency exchange does not have a detrimental impact on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) prices. Furthermore, the cryptocurrency exchange accounted for a small fraction of the entire daily average trading volume. Additionally, the cryptocurrency market has evolved to investors using non-custodial platforms to store Bitcoin as the difficulty of mining and acquiring rises by the day.