The story

CoinEx announced on September 15 that it is winding down operations, citing a prolonged crypto market downturn, declining trading volumes and liquidity, and rising regulatory and compliance costs that have exceeded reasonable boundaries. The exchange was founded in December 2017 by crypto mining pool ViaBTC. CEO Haipo Yang said CoinEx did not become one of the industry's leading exchanges and that security and compliance risks had become increasingly difficult to contain.

The shutdown follows a phased timeline. New user registrations and referral rewards halted immediately, and futures contracts entered a reduce-only mode on September 15. Non-spot services will cease on September 22, and spot trading will end on September 29. Withdrawals remain open until December 22, after which any unwithdrawn USDT will be transferred to an independent custodian with a 5% monthly custody fee. CoinEx says its asset reserve ratio exceeds 100%, meaning user funds are fully backed.

CoinEx will buy back its native CET token at its initial listing price of 0.005 USDT per token. The exchange had approximately $58 million in 24-hour trading volume at the time of the announcement. CoinEx joins BitMEX, BitMart, and AscendEX among exchanges that have shut down in 2026. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao commented that recent wind-downs have allowed users to withdraw their assets, contrasting with QuadrigaCX-style collapses in previous cycles.