Crypto investors alarmed at Cyworld shutdown

Home page of Cyworld's cryptocurrency Clink / Courtesy of Cyworld

By Park Jae-hyuk

Those who invested in Cyworld's cryptocurrency Clink have been concerned whether they will be able to retrieve their investments, as the former most popular social media site is facing a business shutdown, according to industry officials, Monday.

The social media platform, which had its heyday last decade, shuttered its services Oct. 1 without giving any notice.

Following the abrupt suspension, the Clink website has also become inaccessible, and investors are asking Cyworld to issue an official statement addressing rumors about the platform's planned closure.

Cyworld CEO Jeon Jae-wan and other company officials, however, have been unavailable for comment, since the rumors went viral.

Against this backdrop, CoinZest and BitSonic, domestic crypto exchanges that trade Clink, are considering delisting Cyworld's digital currency.

Some Clink investors said they are thinking of filing lawsuits against Cyworld and Jeon.

According to industry officials, the investors are expected to lose at least 1 billion won ($845,305), if Cyworld fails to be normalized.

When the company carried out an initial exchange offering (IEO) of Clink via CoinZest, Jan. 11 ― an attempt to revive the dying platform ― it sold 24 million units of Clink which were collectively worth 480 million won.

The virtual currency was also sold at 26 won per unit, when it was officially listed on crypto exchanges, May 23.

Following Cyworld's failure to attract users with its newly launched online news service QUE, however, the company faced an exodus of employees in the second half of 2019 as they had experienced payment delays since the end of 2018.

Since then, the price of Clink at CoinZest fell to 0.7 won per unit in October, down 96 percent from five months earlier.

At BitSonic, it was traded at 0.19 won per unit as of Monday.

Launched in 1999, Cyworld enjoyed popularity as a major social media platform until the mid-2000s, posting about 100 billion won in annual sales and hosting about 32 million users in its prime.

However, the service yielded to overseas platforms such as Facebook and Twitter after failing to adapt its PC-based service to the mobile environment in the 2010s when smartphones started to gain traction.

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