Cryptocurrency Exchange CoinEx Announces Suspension of Operations and Initiation of Orderly Liquidation
The cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx has announced the suspension of operations and the initiation of an orderly liquidation process. The official reason given is the prolonged downturn in the crypto market, with trading volume and liquidity continuously shrinking, compounded by rising regulatory requirements leading to compliance costs exceeding reasonable limits.
Starting from September 15, 2026, CoinEx will phase out services: new user registrations and referral rewards will cease on that day, and contract trading will enter a "reduction-only" mode, meaning users can only close positions and cannot open new ones thereafter.
From September 22, all non-spot services will be halted except for spot trading; on September 29, spot trading will officially cease, and all platform tokens CET held in user accounts will be forcibly repurchased at a fixed price of 0.005 USDT per CET.
The withdrawal window will remain open until December 22, at which point the platform will officially cease operations. CoinEx also stated that its asset reserve ratio exceeds 100%, promising that user assets can be fully withdrawn, addressing concerns about "insolvency" or "running away".
For USDT that is not withdrawn by the deadline, CoinEx stated it will be transferred to an independent custody account, but a custody fee of 5% of the original balance will be charged monthly, meaning that funds not withdrawn in time will be eroded by the custody fee over time, creating a "the longer you wait, the more you lose" mechanism. CoinEx also specifically stated that this announcement is the final official notice, and any new announcements made in the name of CoinEx thereafter are fraudulent, aimed at preemptively cutting off potential impersonation scams.
Mechanically, this exit does not have a typical "buyer"; essentially, the exchange主体 is actively liquidating: users are directly under pressure, and CET holders are forcibly redeemed at a fixed price of 0.005 USDT, rather than selling freely at market prices—if the secondary market price deviates from this repurchase price, users are effectively being unilaterally priced by the platform; users who do not withdraw in time will also bear an additional monthly 5% custody fee erosion. The beneficiaries are relatively indirect: exchanges with lower compliance costs that are still operating normally may take on the users and trading volume released after CoinEx's exit, leading to a further short-term concentration of the industry towards compliant exchanges.
The repurchase price of 0.005 USDT/CET and the custody fee rate of 5% per month are the only two specific numbers mentioned in this announcement, which did not disclose details on the specific scale of liquidation, number of users, or reserve audits.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
CoinEx was founded in 2017 by Wu Jihan, a co-founder of Bitmain, initially positioning itself as a "built-in contract exchange" for differentiation. In September 2023, CoinEx experienced a security incident where its hot wallet was hacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $70 million in assets. At that time, it chose to first cover user losses and then recover some funds through on-chain tracking cooperation, establishing a certain reputation for "backing up"—this proactive liquidation emphasizes "asset reserve ratio exceeding 100%" and "full withdrawal of user assets", continuing the same logic of restoring trust.
The key point in the fund dispatching of this liquidation is the forced repurchase of CET and the USDT custody fee mechanism: the fixed repurchase price of 0.005 USDT converts the token value that should be determined by secondary market supply and demand into a platform-set forced redemption; while the 5% monthly custody fee objectively accelerates user withdrawals, reducing the scale of funds that CoinEx needs to manage long-term—these two mechanisms work together to compress the liquidation cycle and lower the long-tail management costs the platform bears during the exit process.
The proactive shutdown and orderly liquidation path of the exchange has previous reference cases: in 2022, FTX underwent bankruptcy liquidation after being insolvent, rather than proactively exiting. CoinEx's emphasis on "reserve rate exceeding 100%" and "full withdrawal possible" positions itself as a "strategic proactive exit" rather than "broken capital chain", essentially responding to the trust crisis in the payment capabilities of exchanges since 2022. The entire cryptocurrency exchange industry is currently in a consolidation phase, with rising compliance costs forcing small and medium-sized exchanges to clear out.
Structurally, this is a capital concentration driven by regulatory changes: compliance costs (licenses, KYC/AML, cross-border regulatory coordination) have been rising continuously in recent years, while trading volume and fee income in the crypto market have been shrinking during the downturn, creating a combination of "rigid cost increases and elastic income decreases" that quickly pushes the unit operating costs of small and medium-sized exchanges beyond the bearable range. The users and liquidity released by the forced exit of exchanges will ultimately concentrate towards a few exchanges with stronger compliance capabilities and capital strength, marking a structural contraction process in the cryptocurrency exchange industry from "many and scattered" to "few and strong".
ABAB News · Law of Cognition
Compliance costs are rising faster than fees; those who can’t hold on will exit first.
Fixed price repurchase is a price set unilaterally by the platform.
The later you withdraw, the more you save on custody costs for the platform.