Blockchain.com Announces Closure of Crypto Asset Management Arm in London Following Market Challenges
Important crypto platform Blockchain.com is shutting down its London-based crypto asset management arm less than a year after launching.
The persistent market obstacles, such as price volatility, legal difficulties, regulatory scrutiny and exposure to failed businesses, have left a marked impression on the crypto industry as a whole, and Blockchain.com is no exception.
Blockchain.com Asset Management (BCAM), a crypto asset management platform managed by Altis Partnerswas launched in April 2022. According to a Bloomberg report, citing a filing, however, BCAM applied to be struck off the UK company register on Monday and had yet to file any annual accounts.
A spokesperson for the exchange and wallet provider was quoted as saying:
“Blockchain.com Asset Management was launched in April 2022, shortly before macroeconomic conditions rapidly deteriorated. With the crypto winter now approaching the one-year mark, we made the business decision to stop operating this institutional product.”
The asset management arm was a big step for Blockchain.com, coming a week after raising a funding round at a valuation of $14 billion, up from $5.2 billion.
Still, a new effort to raise funding last October reportedly put Blockchain.com’s valuation at around $3 billion to $4 billion — well below where it had been just a year ago.
BCAM tracked the price of BTC against the dollar and planned to offer “algorithmic risk-managed exposure” to Bitcoin, as well as a product that manages exposure to decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, Chief Strategy Officer Charlie McGarraugh told Bloomberg at the time.
But the crypto winter struck and persisted.
Last July, the digital asset trading firm said it would close its Argentina-based offices and halt expansion plans in more countries.
The same month confirmed it Cryptonews.com that it cut 25% of its workforce (around 150 people) due to the harsh bear market conditions and the need to absorb financial losses.
In addition, Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith said in a letter to shareholders at the time that it now failed Three Arrows Capital (3AC) “will quickly become insolvent and the default effect is approximate [USD] 270 million worth of cryptocurrency and US dollar loans from Blockchain.com.” The CEO was quoted as saying that the company “remains liquid, solvent and our customers will not be affected.”
Following FTX collapse in November, the platform so it “had no exposure to FTX, FTT or Alameda and continue[d] to monitor the situation.”
Then in January, per Bloomberg, Blockchain.com said it planned to cut about 28% of its workforce, or about 110 employees.
Meanwhile, in October, the platform announced the debut of its Blockchain.com Visa card, with 50,000 waitlist registrations already at launch, initially available to US residents.
And on March 1 this year, it launched the Blockchain.com app, consisting of the Blockchain.com account (custodian) and a DeFi wallet (self-custodian).
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