Goodluck Awele 
Bit4You Temporarily stalls Operations after CoinLoan halts Activity
Bit4You, a Belgian platform for trading cryptocurrencies, has suspended all operations, including withdrawals, amidst an investigation into the insolvency of one of its major partners.
Suite à cela, nous avons immédiatement entamé plusieurs démarches pour comprendre la nature et la portée de cette situation.
En savoir plus – https://t.co/wg7iHqN9jt
— Bit4you (@Bit4you1) April 26, 2023
The company explained the freeze in a blog post, stating that it was necessary to safeguard platform users and citing regulations against CoinLoan, an Estonia-based partner cryptocurrency loan service:
“We would like to inform you that we recently learned that one of our major service providers, Estonia-based CoinLoan, no longer had the required registration as a custodian of virtual currencies.”
On April 24th, Estonian regulatory authorities issued a cease-and-desist order prohibiting CoinLoan from processing or releasing assets without the consent of a designated “temporary insolvency practitioner.”
This prevents the platform from transferring, releasing, or disposing of assets or processing transactions without permission.
As of April 26th, Bit4You asserts that it has “no indication that virtual currencies held on behalf of our customers with CoinLoan will not be recoverable.”
In a blog post cited by the Bit4You team in its announcement, CoinLoan asserts that it can fulfill its obligations:
“Our legal team has provided sufficient arguments to prove CoinLoan’s ability to fulfill its obligations. The appointment of the interim trustee seems to be the easiest way for the court to find a solution by letting an independent third party verify the financial situation of the company.”
In addition, the post states that the Estonian court’s action was “unexpected” and would take immediate effect.
Among the Bit4You user and company assets currently frozen by the CoinLoan suspension order are over 145 Bitcoin worth over $4 million when this article was published.
According to the company’s blog post, this represents more than 81% of its total BTC holdings.
In addition, 638,630 Cardano, 1,247,519 XRP, 1,097 Ether, and numerous other tokens have been suspended.
CoinLoan has signaled its intention to file an appeal but maintains that it must presently comply with the court’s order to cease operations.
