Europe's Bitcoin-24 exchange shows new signs of life

Little by little, the German exchange Bitcoin-24 might be showing signs of coming back to life.

The company has not been able to handle transactions since April, when authorities closed its bank accounts.

In its most recent update, the exchange's law firm, Röhl, Dehm & Partner, said it expected to begin notifying customers by email last week about payments that have been due to them from Bitcoin-24's German Commerzbank AG.

"In this e-mail, we shall ask for confirmation of the payment amount and shall request that various details be provided, such as name, address, date and place of birth and nationality," attorney Christian M. Röhl announced in a June 7 release. "We apologise for this further delay."

A news alert published at the top of the law firm's press page added a warning to all Bitcoin-24 customers with gmail addresses: "We have recently become aware several times that our e-mails from Google GMail are moved to the spam (folder). Please check your spam folder and mark our email as 'not spam'. Thank you very much."

In a reddit thread started on Monday, user UnderpaidBIGtime reported the first withdrawals of euros from Bitcoin-24's accounts.

"So we got first money showing up today," UnderpaidBIGtime wrote. "Lets (sic) hope all balances will be restored soon!"

Bitcoin-24, which had been the largest bitcoin exchange in Europe, went offline in April after authorities closed its German and Polish bank accounts. Exchange owner Simon Hausdorf blamed the shutdown on fraudulent transactions made by criminals who used phishing attacks to hack his customers' accounts.

In late May, Bitcoin-24's law firm announced that the seizure of the exchange's German bank accounts had been lifted by the public prosecutor's office in Berlin.

“This means that the suspicions concerning our client in relation to the alleged fraud and money laundering could not be substantiated,” Röhl-Dehm & Partner stated at the time, adding that the exchange was preparing to begin making its first payments due to customers with funds in the German bank.

As of June 7, there has been no further word on the status of Bitcoin-24's Polish bank account.