ABFinance shuts down five months after launch announcement
Regulation & Gov ·
The US-focused crypto platform founded by former Bybit co-CEO Helen Liu has cancelled its launch and is winding down, according to a post on x.com/abf_finance.
ABFinance was unveiled as a compliant financial infrastructure platform aimed at US markets, positioned around trading and regulatory alignment rather than the offshore model associated with exchanges like Bybit, where Liu had served as co-CEO, detailed in a profile of Bybit's evolution. Five months after the announcement, the venture is being discontinued before reaching a full public launch, with operations suspended rather than merely paused.
Reporting on the shutdown has been corroborated across multiple outlets, including coverage from wublockchain.xyz, which tracked the platform's wind-down alongside other accounts describing it as a US-compliant trading venture that never made it to market. Distinct sources covering the cluster place the count at three, with descriptions varying slightly between calling ABFinance a "compliant financial infrastructure platform" and a "US-compliant trading platform," though all agree on the core outcome: the project is closing down operations five months after its debut announcement.
The collapse stands in contrast to the trajectory of Bybit itself, which has continued expanding into tokenized real-world assets, institutional risk infrastructure, and security tooling, as outlined in the same Bybit profile. That contrast underscores how even ventures launched by executives with senior exchange experience are not insulated from early-stage failure in the current US regulatory and market environment.
No public explanation has been given for why ABFinance is winding down, and neither Liu nor the platform's official channels have detailed whether the shutdown stems from funding constraints, regulatory hurdles, or an internal decision to abandon the compliant-platform model altogether. It also remains unclear whether any user funds, partner integrations, or staff transitions are affected, or whether Liu plans a future venture. What happens to the underlying technology and team, and whether any of the three corroborating reports offer further detail in the coming days, remains to be seen.