BitMart Employees' Open Letter Demands Response on User Assets and Salary Issues by August 19
BitMart employees and user representatives have issued an open letter demanding that management and the founders publicly respond by August 19 regarding the whereabouts of user assets, platform reserves, reasons for withdrawal restrictions, and employee salary compensation.
Since the platform announced a structured halt to operations in July, many users have been unable to withdraw their assets normally, with some withdrawal requests stuck in processing for a long time or returned. Employees have reported that their salaries for the last month and due compensation have not been paid.
The open letter calls for the disclosure of wallet, asset, liability, and available reserve information that can be verified by third parties, and asks when the issues with funds and withdrawals were known, who made the decisions, and whether users were encouraged to trade despite known risks.
The letter specifically requests an investigation into related accounts, affiliated companies, and trust arrangements concerning user assets, and demands that the founder's partner explain their related accounts and the flow of funds. It states that unverified information indicates that related accounts may have previously held tens of millions of dollars in assets and have made withdrawals in batches.
The open letter demands that employee salary compensation be settled as soon as possible and that a user repayment plan with a clear timeline be published by August 19, including the scale of remaining assets, total liabilities, recoverable ratios, order, completion time, and supervision mechanisms, subject to independent audit.
If a complete and verifiable explanation is not provided, they will consider submitting the information to law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and the media to push for an investigation.
Market mechanisms show that this incident has driven users to accelerate withdrawals and collapse trust: withdrawal restrictions have intensified doubts about the platform's solvency, with funds flowing to other exchanges; employee and user rights are under pressure, and the platform's operations face dual pressures of compliance and reputation.
Additionally, it is noted that the founder previously denied fleeing, stating that the core team is conducting an asset inventory and considering third-party audits, but users report that withdrawal issues persist.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
BitMart has not provided complete reserve proof since a large-scale hacker attack in 2021, and has faced multiple controversies due to risk control and withdrawal restrictions during its operations, ultimately leading to a structured halt, reflecting the long-term vulnerabilities of small and medium exchanges in compliance and fund management.
In terms of capital flow, the platform continued to promote high-yield products to lock in liquidity before the halt, shifting resources from user funds to internal operations and related arrangements, motivated by the need to maintain short-term operations, which exacerbated the opacity of asset whereabouts.
Similar cases can be seen in the reserve doubts and employee unpaid wages before the collapse of FTX, as well as several small exchanges suddenly halting operations and falling into withdrawal deadlocks during market downturns; currently, exchanges are in a structural clearing phase from expansion to liquidation.
The structural judgment relates to regulatory changes and trust collapse: the lack of mandatory reserve audits has allowed issues to accumulate until they erupted at the time of the halt, with the mechanism being that the risk of mixing user assets with the platform's own funds cannot be timely exposed without independent verification.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Halt announcement does not resolve withdrawal deadlock
- Employee unpaid wages are often a precursor to a funding crisis
- Unaudited reserves equal invisible liabilities