Italian Crypto Exchange The Rock Trading (TRT) Halts Withdrawals

• There is now only one page on the website with the same statement on it.
• The exchange said it will suspend trading on Tuesday, February 21.

The Rock Trading (TRT), a prominent crypto exchange in Italy, emailed its customers on February 17 to inform them that it was experiencing liquidity concerns and would be “interrupting” its operations.

The email read:

“The company is conducting internal audits to identify the causes of the problem and evaluating the adoption of all appropriate or necessary initiatives to protect customers and other stakeholders.”

Industry-Wide Struggle Continues

There is now only one page on the website with the same statement on it. The exchange said it will suspend trading on Tuesday, February 21. The issues with TRT are just the latest in a long line of crypto-related failures, shutdowns, and bankruptcies that have plagued the industry over the last 12 months, with the most fatal being the FTX fall.

On Tuesday, TRT announced that users could log in to their accounts, but only in read-only mode. This meant that users could see their account balances and trends history, as well as produce reports, but they could not make trades or withdraw funds from the exchange.

Furthermore, on that day, TRT CFO Andrea Medri assured the 2,370 members of the TRT Telegram channel that “the TRT team has been working cohesively and non-stop since last Friday to manage the crisis” and promised more details soon.

Journalists from RAI, Italy’s public broadcasting agency, tried to contact the exchange team at their listed office location on Thursday but were unable. Although there have been calls for a class action lawsuit against TRT, it seems that the exchange may still be able to weather the storm. Italian investors have relied on TRT for over a decade.