Bitconnect system has formally announced shutting down its lending platform and cryptocurrency exchange following warnings from Texas and North Carolina regulators.
In an announcement on its website, Bitconnect stated that it will refund all active loans at a rate which it calculated from the past 15 day average price.
“With release of your entire active loan in the lending wallet we are transferring all your lending wallet balance to your BitConnect wallet balance at 363.62 USD. This rate has been calculated based on last 15 days averages of the closing price registered on CoinMarketCap.com,” the statement reads.
Closing the lending platform will allow Bitconnect to be listed on outside exchanges giving more options for trading, the platform said. However, moments of the notice, the BCC token price plummeted from around $180 to $24 amid a general market decline across all cryptocurrencies.
“BitConnect.co website will still operate for wallet service, news and educational purposes,” the statement said.
It noted that BitConnect X ICO is still functional and “we are building an exchange platform on the BitConnect X website.” With BitConnect X operating as an exchange platform, BitConnect Coin (BCC) will be listed there.
BitConnect was, by its own definition, a self-regulated financial system, an open source cryptocurrency platform. Many analysts called BitConnect a Ponzi scheme because of its multi-level referral system, which rewarded active users each time they recruited a new user.