San Francisco, May 9 (IANS): Crypto exchange Bittrex has filed for bankruptcy in the US, months after announcing that it will shut down operations.

Bittrex, which was also sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has more than 100,000 creditors, with estimated liabilities and assets both within the $500 million to $1 billion range, according to a court filing.

"Having previously announced that Bittrex, Inc. would be ceasing all operations in the US effective April 30, we have now made the decision to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in Delaware," the crypto exchange said late on Monday.

This move will not impact Bittrex Global that will continue operations as normal for its customers outside the US.

"For those customers who did not withdraw their funds from the platform prior to the end of April, your funds remain safe and secure, and our main priority is to ensure that our customers are made whole," said Bittrex.

While the Bankruptcy Court will ultimately decide the method by which those funds can be claimed by and distributed to our customers, "we intend to ask the court to activate those accounts as soon as possible so that customers meeting the necessary regulatory requirements will be able to withdraw them".

The US SEC sued Bittrex on April 17, alleging that former CEO William Shihara encouraged crypto asset issuers seeking to make their tokens available on the platform to delete public statements that could lead regulators to investigate those token offerings as securities.

Bittrex denied the SEC's allegations, saying the crypto assets on its platform were not securities or investment contracts.