Bitfront – a cryptocurrency exchange platform launched in 2020 by Japanese social media company LINE – will now cease its operation following the announcement that was made on Monday.

With the development, new sign-ups and credit card deposits will be stopped immediately while the platform’s users were given until March 31 next year to take out their funds.

The exchange was quick to clarify that its business decision is in no way related to the case of some of its competitors that were reportedly accused of misconduct.

According to the announcement made by LINE, it will now turn its focus on its native decentralized finance (DeFi) network and its LINK token.

“Despite our efforts to overcome the challenges in this rapidly evolving industry, we have regrettably determined that we need to shutdown Bitfront in order to continue growing the LINE blockchain and LINK token economy,” said the corporate announcement.

Image: DailyCoin

FTX Fallout: Another Crypto Exchange Shutters

Launched in February 2020 with the initial name Bitbox, Bitfront supported trades for the well known cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as its native token, LINK in U.S. dollar fiat markets.

It was operated by LINE Corporation, a Tokyo-based internet company along with its blockchain arm, LVC Corporation.

Meanwhile, LINE, Bitfront’s parent company is a subsidiary of the Softbank and South Korean internet firm Naver-owned Z Holdings.

In officially going out of business, the crypto exchange now becomes one of the latest crypto-firms that made the decision to close their doors for good following the collapse of FTX which used to be one of the world’s largest exchanges.

It can be recalled that on November 11, after finding itself in a gigantic financial hole, FTX filed for a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and was later found out to have a debt that was at least $3 billion.

To this date, there are no updates as to how the company will compensate its users whose funds have been kept trapped in its system for weeks now.

LINE, though, have already clarified that their decision is not influenced by the circumstances that surround the implosion of FTX.

Bitfront: LINK Token Not Looking Good Right Now

It turns out that Bitfront’s closure might have hurt the LINK token as it has been on a decline according to latest tracking from Coingecko.

At the time of this writing, the crypto asset is changing hands at $24.23 and has been down by 6.4% over the last 24 hours.

Moreover, the altcoin is staring at weekly deficit of 6.3% as it continues to paint its charts in red. Hopefully, with the extra focus that LINE can now afford to give to the token, it will soon be able to break free from its slump and climb to higher trading prices.

Crypto total market cap at $791 billion on the daily chart | Featured image from Talking Retail, Chart: TradingView.com