Knaken officially kaput: Dutch court flips the lights off on crypto platform after €7M goes walkabout 🪦

A Rotterdam court declared cryptocurrency platform Knaken Cryptohandel BV and its affiliated foundation bankrupt on Thursday after prosecutors said 7 million euros ($8 million) in customer assets were missing. The ruling was issued to ensure an orderly settlement after Knaken blocked access to its platform and accounts, and the court found the company has insufficient assets to fully repay users.

Judges also noted that customers lacked sufficient information to determine their legal position, a gap that helped drive the decision to place the firm and its foundation into insolvency. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service filed the bankruptcy petition on June 30, opening a criminal investigation into the missing funds, while the Netherlands' financial crime investigation service raided the company in late June and seized devices and assets.

Founded in Rotterdam in 2017, Knaken went offline in early June, according to NL Times. The company does not appear in the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets' (AFM) register of authorized crypto-asset service providers. The AFM told Cointelegraph in early July that it had already begun taking supervisory and enforcement action against unauthorized crypto-asset service providers after the Netherlands ended its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation transition period on June 30, 2025, a deadline that arrived before the EU-wide maximum transition deadline of July 1, 2026.