Another crypto exchange is shutting down
CoinEx said it is closing its exchange after almost nine years, citing the prolonged weakness of the cryptocurrency market, declining trading volumes and liquidity, increasingly demanding regulatory requirements and rising compliance costs.
The exchange will conduct an orderly wind-down, gradually discontinuing all services over the next three months. CoinEx says it continues to maintain a reserve ratio above 100% and that customer assets are fully backed. Withdrawals will remain available throughout the wind-down period.
Beginning September 15, CoinEx will stop accepting new-user registrations and end referral commissions and other rewards. Futures will switch to reduce-only mode, meaning users will be able to reduce or close existing positions but will not be able to open new ones. Fiat buying and selling, margin trading, loans, Earn, staking and strategy trading will also stop accepting new orders or subscriptions.
On September 22, CoinEx will discontinue all services other than spot trading and stop accepting blockchain deposits. CET deposits will remain available until September 29. All spot trading will end on September 29. The exchange will also wind down CoinEx Smart Chain (CSC) and the OneSwap decentralised exchange.
Any CET remaining in user accounts will be repurchased by CoinEx at a fixed price of 0.005 USDT per CET, with no quantity limit or additional conditions announced.
After trading has ended completely, CoinEx will provide approximately three months for users to withdraw their assets. The final withdrawal deadline is December 22, 2026. After that date, the exchange will cease operating.
USDT that remains unwithdrawn after the deadline will be transferred to an independent custody arrangement. CoinEx says a monthly custody fee equal to 5% of the initial asset balance recorded at the end of the withdrawal period will apply.
Users will still be able to submit claims for assets held in custody through customer support until August 22, 2028. Because the monthly fee is calculated on the original recorded balance rather than the remaining balance, leaving funds on the platform after December could rapidly reduce the amount recoverable.
CoinEx has warned users not to wait until the deadline to withdraw, as blockchain congestion, higher network fees or extended confirmation times could delay transfers. Users should also verify notices through official channels and follow basic wallet security practices, as shutdown announcements can be exploited by phishing campaigns.
CoinEx Wallet and CoinEx Vault are not included in the exchange shutdown. According to CoinEx, these products operate independently from the trading platform and will continue operating normally.
CoinEx described its September 15 notice as its final official announcement. The company warned that any later documents presented as supplementary rules, new policies or changes to the shutdown plan should be treated as fraudulent.
CoinEx founder Haipo Yang wrote on X that December 22 was selected to mark exactly nine years since he founded the exchange. Yang also said he had considered acquisition offers but ultimately chose to close the platform in what he described as the best possible ending for CoinEx while ensuring that users could recover their assets.
Regulatory pressure intensifies
The decision to leave the global market comes only a few months after CoinEx began sharply reducing its geographic reach in response to new regulation.
On June 21, CoinEx announced that it would discontinue services throughout the European Economic Area by July 1, when the relevant MiCA transition period ended. Crypto-asset service providers without the required authorisation could no longer continue serving affected EEA customers after the applicable national transition period. CoinEx subsequently removed the euro from P2P trading and its fast buy-and-sell service. Less than three months later, the company announced a global shutdown.
Compliance pressure also increased following a separate controversy. In June, TRM Labs alleged that CoinEx had processed more than $3.84 billion in blockchain-traced flows involving Iranian entities over roughly six years, making the platform a significant bridge between Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem and international markets. The figure represents the analytics company’s findings and should not be read as a final regulatory or judicial determination.
CoinEx denied having business relationships with the Iranian government, state agencies or organisations linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The exchange said it had strengthened its blocking of access from Iran, geolocation controls and blockchain transaction monitoring, and had frozen accounts or assets associated with sanctioned entities.
CoinEx had already faced legal action in the United States in 2023. The exchange left the US market after the New York attorney general sued it for operating without registering as a securities and commodities broker-dealer. The case ended in a settlement worth more than $1.7 million, including approximately $1.17 million in customer refunds and more than $600,000 in penalties.
Founded in 2017 as part of the ViaBTC ecosystem, CoinEx previously said it served more than 10 million users across over 200 countries and regions. A recent CoinMarketCap snapshot cited by the original report showed approximately $52 million in 24-hour spot trading volume and about $166 million in tracked assets. These figures are time-sensitive and may change as customers withdraw funds.
At least 100 cryptocurrency projects reportedly disappeared or stopped operating in 2026, spanning exchanges, DeFi platforms, blockchains and Web3 infrastructure. CoinEx’s departure extends the year’s contraction among mid-sized cryptocurrency exchanges. Recent examples include:
- BitMEX, which announced that it would close on September 23, 2026, ending more than 11 years of operation.
- BitMart, which announced plans to stop operating and asked customers to withdraw their assets ahead of a closure scheduled for January 2027.
- Orionx, a Tether-backed exchange that closed in early September after an audit reportedly found a customer-asset shortfall exceeding $7 million.
- AscendEX, which stopped providing all services on July 1 and warned that it might not be able to process every customer withdrawal automatically.
Users looking for an alternative platform can consult the FORECK.INFO crypto exchange ratings, which compare available exchanges by security, legal status, fees, liquidity, trading conditions, deposit and withdrawal options, editorial assessments and user votes. Ratings and reviews are useful comparison tools, but users should still verify whether a platform and its legal entity are authorised to serve their country.
The immediate priority for CoinEx users is therefore operational rather than speculative: close affected positions, review network and destination-wallet details, and complete withdrawals well before December 22.
