Holder
10 hour ago
Bearish

Crypto exchange CoinEx to shut down after nine years

2 min

Crypto exchange CoinEx has announced it is ceasing operations entirely — nearly nine years after launch. The platform is winding down in stages, and users must withdraw their funds by December 22, 2026, the day CoinEx shuts for good.

The company blames weaker market conditions, declining industry trading activity and liquidity, tougher regulatory requirements, and rising compliance and infrastructure costs.

Wind-down schedule

  • September 15, 2026 — new registrations are halted, along with fiat, margin trading, loans, Earn, staking and strategic trading.
  • September 22 — all non-spot services are switched off.
  • September 29 — spot trading ends, and the CET token is repurchased from users at 0.005 USDT.
  • December 22 — withdrawals close and the exchange fully ceases operations.

What happens to user funds

Until December 22, 2026 the platform effectively runs as a withdrawal-only terminal. CoinEx says its asset reserves exceed 100%, meaning user funds are fully backed. Assets left unwithdrawn after the deadline move to independent custody and incur a monthly fee of 5% of the original balance — designed to push users to pull their money out early.

A brief history

CoinEx launched in December 2017, founded by Haipo Yang — an early Bitcoin investor and founder of the ViaBTC mining pool. An ecosystem grew around it, with its own CET token and the CoinEx Smart Chain; the company says the platform served more than 10 million users across 200+ countries and regions.

In 2023, roughly $70 million was drained from the exchange's hot wallets in an attack linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group; CoinEx pledged at the time to fully compensate affected users.