Another crypto exchange has fallen victim to the bear market. CoinEx shuts down after almost nine years and moves into an orderly wind-down. Users can still withdraw their balances from the platform until December 22, 2026.
CoinEx is a centralized crypto exchange. It holds its customers' deposits and matches their buy and sell orders on its own platform. Besides spot trading, the exchange offered futures, margin trading, loans and staking. It also ran its own blockchain network called CoinEx Smart Chain. Haipo Yang originally founded the company in Hong Kong, and the exchange launched in December 2017. Its operational headquarters is now in the Seychelles. Yang still runs the exchange as CEO. According to the company, CoinEx served tens of millions of users. CoinMarketCap data shows the platform most recently recorded a daily trading volume of around USD 58 million. It ranked 33rd in the data provider's exchange ranking. Now it is closing its doors, according to a press release.
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CoinEx users have until December 22 to withdraw
The wind-down affects only the exchange. However, CoinEx Wallet and CoinEx Vault continue to operate as independent services. First, CoinEx has stopped accepting new registrations and paying referral rewards since the announcement. Futures now trade only in reduce-only mode, so users can only close existing positions. Fiat services, margin, loans, Earn, Staking and Strategic Trading also no longer accept new orders. From September 22, 2026, the exchange will shut down all non-spot services. At that point, it will force-close open futures positions at the index price. It will also redeem all Earn and Staking products. The platform will process unpaid loans under the applicable liquidation rules. At the same time, on-chain deposits end, and users can deposit only CET until September 29.
Spot trading ends on September 29, 2026. The platform cancels open spot orders when trading ends. For holders of the exchange token CET, a buyback has been running since the announcement. In the CET/USDT pair, CoinEx continuously places buy orders at USDT 0.005 per token. These orders carry no volume limit and no fees. On September 29, the exchange will finally buy back any remaining CET holdings automatically at the same price. There will be no later redemption of the token. On the same day, CoinEx Smart Chain (CSC) and the in-house decentralized exchange OneSwap will also cease operations. The redemption window for the related cross-chain bridge closes on that day as well.
For existing customers, however, two deadlines matter. Starting at 02:00 UTC on September 29, CoinEx will liquidate all assets other than USDT still held in accounts. The platform sells tokens with liquidity on external markets and credits the net proceeds in USDT. By contrast, it will gradually delist illiquid tokens and stop maintaining the related wallets. Anyone who wants to withdraw assets in their original form therefore has to act beforehand. Withdrawals themselves, though, continue until 02:00 UTC on December 22, 2026. That is exactly nine years to the day after the exchange launched. Unwithdrawn USDT then moves to independent custody, where a monthly fee of 5% of the deadline balance applies. Missing the deadline thus costs part of the holdings every month. Users can file claims with support until August 22, 2028. After that, CoinEx will dispose of unclaimed balances in accordance with applicable law.
CoinEx shuts down over market downturn and compliance costs
In its official announcement, CoinEx gives several reasons. First on the list is the prolonged downturn in the crypto market. Meanwhile, trading volumes have fallen and liquidity has shrunk across the industry. Furthermore, CoinEx points to steadily rising regulatory requirements in key jurisdictions. Compliance costs and operational uncertainty had exceeded acceptable limits, the exchange said. After careful review, it therefore opted for an orderly wind-down. There will be no further notices, and CoinEx will treat any later "new announcement" in its name as fraud. Founder Haipo Yang himself puts the risks of running an exchange front and center.
"The security and compliance risks of operating a crypto exchange have become increasingly difficult to contain." - Haipo Yang, founder and CEO of CoinEx
At the same time, CoinEx is trying to dispel doubts about its own solvency. According to CoinEx, the exchange's reserve ratio is above 100%, and it cites a proof of reserves as evidence. Consequently, CoinEx says its reserves fully cover all user balances, which remain available for withdrawal. The entire timeline rests on this backing, which the company itself reports. After all, withdrawals through December require the reserves to actually exist. CoinEx intends to keep withdrawals running until the deadline, regardless of the shutdown of the other services. Still, the exchange advises users to withdraw balances early, because networks could become congested shortly before the deadline.
A wave of consolidation among mid-sized exchanges
CoinEx is not the first exchange to give up in 2026. AscendEX already shut down operations in early July 2026. Before that, a strategic liquidity agreement had fallen through. In addition, the exchange had not received a license under the European MiCA regulation. Unlike the announced wind-down at CoinEx, though, the exit there was disorderly. Users reported blocked withdrawals. On-chain analyst ZachXBT assessed the reserves as nearly empty.
A few weeks later, in July 2026, BitMEX announced its own closure. After more than eleven years, the exchange will cease operations at 04:00 UTC on September 23, 2026. This followed a strategic review that included a sale process with several interested parties. Notably, BitMEX never lost customer funds to a security incident in its history. Even so, the exchange did not find a buyer. Incidentally, its end falls right between two stages of the CoinEx wind-down.
Across the industry, falling trading volumes and stricter regulation rank as the drivers of this consolidation. In the EU, not least, full enforcement of MiCA tightens the requirements for exchanges. As a result, rising compliance costs weigh especially on mid-tier providers. And CoinEx cites largely the same factors in its own reasoning, from shrinking liquidity to the cost of compliance.
