Dutch court declares crypto platform Knaken bankrupt over missing funds
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- Rotterdam court declared Knaken Cryptohandel BV and its affiliated foundation bankrupt on Thursday after prosecutors said €7 million ($8 million) in customer assets were missing from the platform.
- Knaken had insufficient assets to fully repay users, and customers lacked sufficient information to determine their legal position, the court said in its ruling.
- Dutch Public Prosecution Service filed the bankruptcy petition on June 30 after opening a criminal investigation into the missing funds.
- Netherlands' financial crime investigation service raided Knaken in late June, seizing devices and assets as part of the inquiry.
- Knaken was founded in Rotterdam in 2017, went offline in early June, and does not appear in the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets' (AFM) register of authorized crypto-asset service providers.
- AFM told Cointelegraph it had already begun supervisory and enforcement action against unauthorized crypto-asset service providers after the Netherlands ended its MiCA transition period on June 30, 2025 — ahead of the EU-wide maximum deadline of July 1, 2026.
Why it matters: An estimated €7M in customer funds is unaccounted for at a crypto platform that never registered with Dutch regulators. The collapse lands exactly as the Netherlands closes its MiCA transition period, giving AFM a live test case for enforcing compliance against unauthorized providers — while affected users now face an orderly settlement with no clear path to full repayment.
