Juno claims that there is an "uncertainty with <its> crypto partner."
Juno, a Singapore-based crypto bank established in 2019 by Varun Deshpande, has urged its users to sell or self-custody their digital assets held in Juno checking accounts.
According to a Twitter thread shared on January 4th, “Juno doesn't custody crypto assets and relies on <...> crypto partners for these services.”
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Without going into further detail, Juno stated that there is “uncertainty with <their> crypto partner.” It is believed that the “crypto partner” mentioned in the tweets is a United States crypto payments company, Wyre.
On January 3rd, the news broke that Wyre CEO Ioannis Giannaros reportedly sent an email to the company’s employees, stating:
We'll continue to do everything we can, but I want everyone to brace themselves for the fact that we will need to unwind the business over the next couple of weeks.
At the time of writing, Wyre hasn’t issued any official statements.
It appears that following the news, Juno decided to take action to protect its customers. The company has decided to disable the ability to purchase crypto assets. Moreover, the company auto-converted stablecoins, like USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT) and MUsdc (mUSDC) to United States Dollars in user government-insured accounts “which are FDIC Insured up to $250,000 via <Juno’s> partner bank.”
Nevertheless, the company has increased withdrawal limits. The daily limit has grown from $40,000 to $200,000. On top of that, the monthly limit increased from $155,000 to $500,000, with a yearly limit increasing from $500,000 to $1,500,000.
In its Twitter thread, the company claimed that after alerting the users, crypto assets held on the platform were below $1.25 million. At the end of its message, Juno noted:
As for the next steps, we are working towards restarting crypto buys and deposits as soon as possible, and we plan to transition to a new crypto partner.
Juno claims that its services unrelated to crypto were not affected and operate as always.
