Crypto business goes into liquidation, in first for Gibraltar

By Peter Schirmer

Gibraltar’s ventures into the world of cyber-finance have suffered their first casualty.

Last week Media Protocol – a blockchain platform which issued its own tokens and developed multi-crypto wallets – was placed into liquidation.

The development comes after the Chronicle reported that Coinfloor, the first of the five firms which have so far received Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) licences from the GFSC, was “scaling back its activities” for now.

The two developments are unrelated but have one thing in common. Both businesses have been hit by the mercurial fluctuations of the crypto-currency markets.

Creditors of Media Protocol are to meet liquidator Edgar Lavarello of PwC, and lawyer James Montado of Isolas, today and will learn they are unlikely to receive as much as a penny on their investments – the extent of which are, perhaps surprisingly, unknown.

Some investors punted with cryptos, others with fiat currency in sterling, euros, or US dollars.

“We won’t know the extent of Media Protocol’s debts until the meeting on Friday,” Mr Lavarello said.

And he admitted that neither PwC nor Isolas were likely to be paid for the liquidation work
“It represents the first insolvent liquidation of a crypto-related company in Gibraltar and seems to have been a victim of the slump in the price of the crypto-currencies Ethereum and Bitcoin,” Mr Montado explained.

See Money Column on Page 7 of today's print and e-edition