Bitcoin Daily: CryptoBridge Exchange To Cease Operations; GA Governor To Tap Bitcoin Platform CEO For Senate Spot

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) CryptoBridge is shutting down.

The exchange posted an announcement on its website to inform users that its services and servers will cease operations after December 15. While users can withdraw funds from the exchange until then, deposits will be closed after December 3.

“We put in a lot of hard work and did everything in our power to make the outcome different, but market conditions, increasing regulation, inability to fund further development and maintain operations forced us to make a difficult decision: With great regret, we’re announcing that CryptoBridge is shutting down,” read the notice.

The firm later revealed that it had also shut down all of its social media channels, and that “all existing non-mature BCO staking positions have been paid out, effectively cancelling the contract.”

In other news, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is going against Donald Trump and appointing financial executive Kelly Loeffler to fill the U.S. Senate seat held by retiring GOP Senator Johnny Isakson. Loeffler is chief executive officer of Atlanta-based Bitcoin trading platform Bakkt.

Trump had been pressuring Kemp to appoint Representative Doug Collins, with the two reportedly having a tense meeting at the White House last week. And Florida Representative Matt Gaetz warned Kemp on Twitter, writing, “You are ignoring his request because you THINK you know better than @POTUS. If you substitute your judgment for the president’s, maybe you need a primary in 2022. Let’s see if you can win one w/o Trump.”

And Dutch crypto startups are unhappy with regulators who want to implement the EU’s 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive before the Jan. 10 deadline.

The Dutch Ministry of Finance (FIN) and Dutch National Bank (DNB) have reportedly introduced additions to the EU’s AMLD5 legislation without disclosing them to parliament, including requiring crypto firms to pay for their own supervision costs and go through a registration process.

“We do not think it is appropriate to start as a new sector under a supervision financing model that has been explicitly adjusted and weighted up in response to the financial crisis,” crypto exchange Bitonic and crypto regulation body VBNL‘s Daan Kleiman said in a letter sent to the Dutch parliament Oct. 30, according to CoinDesk.