Knaken collapse — what creditors were owed and recovered (2026)

Knaken was a Rotterdam crypto broker founded in 2017. It went offline suddenly in June 2026, after failing to obtain a licence from the Dutch market regulator AFM, and customers could no longer reach their balances. Shortly before the bankruptcy the public prosecutor seized the crypto that was left. On 16 July 2026 the Rotterdam District Court declared Knaken Cryptohandel B.V. and the related Stichting Knaken Payments bankrupt and appointed a curator.

According to the curator's bankruptcy report, customers together held almost EUR 8.64 million on the platform (the headline here, converted at the rate on the bankruptcy date), and the company itself said at least EUR 5 million of it was no longer there. The prosecutor sold the seized crypto for about EUR 2.2 million. Customers have filed about EUR 8.4 million of claims, and certificate holders and lenders to the company can also claim. The curator estimates the final shortfall at EUR 7 to 7.5 million.

The curator found that positions bought for customers were held in Knaken's own name and that customer money and business costs were mixed for years; the problems go back to 2020. Knaken blamed a 2020 hack, which the AFM says accounts for only EUR 1.5-2 million. The prosecutor suspects people at the top of the company of embezzlement and forgery. Nothing has been paid to creditors.