Vogogo is shutting down, some bitcoin exchanges may be impacted
Vogogo is a risk management company and payment processing business that services several bitcoin exchanges with banking solutions in Canada, and in an announcement from the company on Tuesday, they said they are shutting down its payment processing business.
Several bitcoin exchanges such as Kraken, Coinbase, Celery, ChangeTip, Bitstamp, and possibly others that use Vogogo may be impacted.
The shutting down of Vogogo will happen over the next several weeks, however bitcoin exchanges that use Vogogo will need to find an alternative for Canadian customers relatively quickly.
Coinbase has already sent out an email to Canadian users today which read:
As of August 1, Coinbase’s Canadian payments provider, Vogogo, will be shutting down its payment processing business. When this occurs, Coinbase will no longer be able to support Canadian EFT transfers, Interac transfers, or the storage of customer CAD on Coinbase.
All customer CAD stored with Coinbase MUST be withdrawn off site or converted to digital currency by July 29th.
If you hold CAD in your Coinbase account, you must liquidate your CAD holdings before July 29th by either:
• creating a withdrawal to your linked bank account or
• exchanging stored CAD for digital currency.
If you are unable to withdraw or exchange your CAD before July 29th, Coinbase will suspend your account and significant fees will be incurred for CAD withdrawals. We are disappointed to lose the ability to offer these payment methods for our Canadian customers and hope to provide additional payment methods in the future. We appreciate your support during this change.
Kraken and Celery haven’t sent out any communications yet to customers, but more than likely will communicate any impact if there is one when necessary. It’s unclear if Bitstamp still uses Vogogo after partnering with them last year. ChangeTip although still operational, was sold to AirBnB in an aquihire deal in April.
Canadians that want to continue buying and selling bitcoin can simply switch to another exchange that supports Canadian dollars (CAD), for example Gemini, Coinsquare, QuadrigaCX, or Taurus Exchange.
