Crypto's Terrible Year Continues with Yet Another Closure

Major cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced it will close its operations in Japan and deregister from the country's main financial regulator at the end of January 2023. The company is one of the world's biggest crypto exchanges, with trading volumes in excess of $400 million per day. 

The firm said the action has been brought about by “current market conditions” in Japan plus the poor state of the global crypto market. Kraken will stop taking deposits on January 9 while giving traders a last chance to convert their balances to assets of their choosing. 

In response, Bitcoin was down in midweek trading, hovering around $16,600. In 2022, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has taken a 65% dive. Crypto has had a horrible year overall, headlined by major bankruptcies. The market has lost an astonishing $2.2 trillion from its record $3 trillion achieved in November 2021.

This year has seen the demise of cryptocurrencies Luna, UST, Celsius and 3AC, driving huge losses for investors. Most recently, the implosion of FTX has been the latest casualty in the crypto bloodbath of 2022. Now, Kraken’s disinvestment from Japan continues the gloomy picture.

Analysts point out that crypto’s big freeze has mainly revealed the levels of exposure of crypto firms to each other, suggesting that each new collapse harms the industry even more. Yet more observers point out that there is a dangerous lack of transparency within centralized crypto companies, which are largely unregulated.