CoinEx leaves 91 days between its last trade and its last withdrawal

CoinEx says it can repay every customer and is shutting anyway. That is a failure on the income statement. CoinEx said compliance and operational costs had climbed past what it considered reasonable, and it set the contraction of trading volume and liquidity across the industry alongside "continuously rising regulatory requirements across major jurisdictions" ^[9][10]. The report does not include CoinEx's trading volumes, revenue or the amount of CET outstanding ^[21]. The cost squeeze rests on the company's own account of its own books.

Spot trading closes in September and non-spot services end entirely on September 22; the last withdrawal is December 22, 2026, which is 91 days later ^[7][3][18]. CoinEx says its reserve rate is above 100% and checkable through a Merkle-tree proof-of-reserves system ^[11].

BitMart's users have not been able to withdraw, the exchange hired restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal and pledged an independent overseer, and the proof-of-reserves report it promised in May has not appeared ^[15]. CoinEx's 91 days are what separate the two wind-downs. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao wrote on X that "The few recent wind-downs during this winter have allowed users to withdraw their assets," calling it "a sharp contrast to the 'QuadrigaCx styles' in the previous cycles" ^[12]. QuadrigaCX collapsed after founder Gerald Cotten died in India in December 2018 holding the keys to roughly $135 million of customer crypto, and tens of thousands of users never recovered their money ^[13].

CoinEx put one price in the announcement, and it is for the exchange token. It will buy back leftover CET at 0.005 USDT a coin, so a holder brings 200 coins for each dollar back ^[8][19].

A few months before the shutdown, Yang was arguing against the revenue line his peers had added. Exchanges plugged into US stock trading mostly to lift revenue as crypto volumes softened ^[17]. In a June post on X, according to Cryptopolitan, Yang said the economics were hard to justify on compliance, user and revenue grounds ^[16].

Three named venues have now wound down in 2026, and BitMEX's parent, HDR Global Trading Limited, could not find a buyer for an 11-year-old book that popularized the perpetual swap ^[20][14]. On that evidence, licence and compliance overhead held across major jurisdictions is the binding cost, and it lands hardest on the venue with the thinnest volumes; CoinEx names the market slump first ^[1]. Both readings fit the same closure, and a sale would separate them: if a mid-sized exchange book changes hands at a disclosed price this cycle, the fixed-cost account is wrong and 2026 was only a slump in volumes.