Crypto Trading Platform Bankrupt, Customer Funds Worth Rp 144 Billion Vanish
A Rotterdam court has officially declared cryptocurrency trading platform Knaken bankrupt. The legal decision was handed down by a panel of judges after the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) filed a bankruptcy petition at the end of June. The aggressive move by legal authorities was triggered by an emergency report from the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), which detected a highly alarming situation within the crypto service provider. Customer funds totalling €7 million (Rp 144.90 billion) were reported to have mysteriously disappeared.
Prior to filing the bankruptcy petition, the prosecution service had also launched a formal criminal investigation into the company’s management over the alleged embezzlement of digital assets, according to a report by the Dutch Times on Friday (17/7/2026). The investment platform, typically used by the public to convert conventional currency into crypto and vice versa, abruptly ceased operations and went offline in early June. Amid mass panic among investors due to the sudden offline status of the site, Knaken’s management controversially asked its customers not to pursue legal compensation claims.
The panel of judges stressed that the decision to bankrupt the business entity was taken purely to protect the wider public interest from more massive losses. The lack of clarity regarding Knaken’s internal financial governance was an absolute consideration for the court in handing down the bankruptcy ruling. “Knaken has many customers, and there is a very significant deficit of funds at Knaken, about which customers were not informed. As a result, a large amount of customer money has disappeared without clarity on how this could happen,” the Rotterdam court panel stated during the reading of its verdict.
During the proceedings, Knaken’s management submitted a defence plea arguing that bankruptcy status was not the best method to dissolve the company’s or its foundation’s operations. Management claimed that all interests and financial rights of the customers were already legally protected through other criminal law instruments, including through a series of company assets seized by FIOD, the investigative department of the Dutch Tax Authority. Knaken subsequently proposed an alternative settlement plan involving the distribution of remaining cash funds currently available within the company to be allocated proportionally to all affected customers. However, this independent restructuring plan was flatly rejected by the court because Knaken was proven to have completely insufficient funds to pay its obligations in full to its customers.