CoinEx says its Reserve Ratio exceeds 100%. How is that number verified, and can I fully trust it?
A reserve ratio above 100% is a figure CoinEx has disclosed on its own, meaning the exchange claims to hold more assets than the total balances shown in user accounts, in theory enough to cover withdrawals from every user simultaneously. But it is worth noting this figure is currently a one-sided statement from the exchange, public reporting has not mentioned whether an independent third-party auditor verified reserves for this wind-down process, which is not quite the same as the Proof of Reserves mechanism some large exchanges publish periodically, which is typically accompanied by externally verifiable on-chain snapshots and Merkle Tree proofs.
The more prudent practical approach is not to assume zero risk simply because of an official statement, but to treat withdrawing as early as possible as a strategy that protects you regardless of whether the claim turns out to be accurate. CoinEx has already given a clear timeline either way, the sooner you move assets into a wallet you control yourself or another platform you trust, the less Counterparty Risk you carry, independent of whether the reserve ratio figure itself is precise.
If I hold a less liquid, niche Token, what happens after spot trading closes on September 29?
CoinEx announcement states that for tokens still carrying external market liquidity, the exchange may sell them through outside trading venues and convert them into USDT; for tokens without enough liquidity to support that conversion process, they may simply get delisted, after which the exchange no longer maintains wallets or redemption mechanisms for those tokens. This means that if you hold a token with inherently thin trading volume and wait until after September 29 to try withdrawing, the worst-case outcome is that there is not even a chance to convert it into USDT, and the asset could simply become unrecoverable.
For holders of niche tokens, then, September 29 is actually more critical than December 22, December 22 is the deadline after which unwithdrawn USDT starts accruing fees, but that assumes your assets are already USDT or liquid enough to have been converted before September 29. If what you hold is an illiquid token, the correct move is to withdraw it in its original form to your own wallet right now, not to wait until close to any deadline, and not to assume the exchange will necessarily be able to convert it into USDT at all.
CET Token holders are being force-bought-back at $0.005. Is that price fair, and can I refuse the buyback and keep holding the token instead?
Based on the announcement, this buyback mechanism does not give holders a refuse option, between September 15 and 29, users can proactively sell CET to the exchange at this price on the market, and once the buyback window closes, any CET still sitting unsold in an account gets automatically converted at the same price, the token itself disappears from your account and gets replaced with an equivalent USD-denominated asset. This means even if you believe CET could be worth more in the future, or you simply want to keep holding the token, the exchange shutting down itself ends that option, you cannot withdraw CET to an external wallet and keep holding it, because the token existence is tied to CoinEx platform actually operating.
As for whether the price is fair, $0.005 is indeed slightly above the market price before the announcement, around $0.00466, so from that angle the exchange is offering a rate somewhat better than the prevailing market at the time, rather than using the shutdown as cover to force a lowball buyout. But this is also a reminder worth keeping in mind: if you hold a token issued by an exchange itself, that token long-term value is, to some degree, tied to whether that exchange keeps operating at all, once shutdown news breaks, pricing power over the token essentially shifts entirely into the exchange own hands.
CZ said this exit is different from a case like QuadrigaCX. What exactly is the difference?
QuadrigaCX was a catastrophic case at a Canadian exchange in 2019: the founder died suddenly with no warning, and he was the only person holding the private keys to the exchange cold wallets, leaving roughly $190 million in user assets permanently locked and unrecoverable. Subsequent investigation also found the exchange books had been chaotic for a long time, and some assets may not have actually existed at all. This is a textbook collapse pattern where the founder vanishes and the assets vanish along with him, users get zero advance warning and have essentially no recourse afterward.
CoinEx approach this time is entirely different: the founder publicly and openly explained the decision, a withdrawal window of more than three months was provided, a specific Reserve Ratio figure was disclosed, and an asset custody claim period lasting nearly two years remains open. CZ comment centers on the point that this advance-notice, time-given, assets-preserved style of exit represents genuine progress in how the industry handles exchange closures as a process. But that does not mean users can simply take no action, the entire point of a timeline existing is to require users to actively withdraw within the deadline, if users ignore the announcement and wait until the last moment, they could still face additional risk from congestion or processing delays, it is just that the nature of that risk is completely different from assets simply vanishing the way they did at QuadrigaCX.
Today, September 22, CoinEx exchange Margin trading, crypto lending, Staking, and Earn services officially shut down, with most on-chain deposit addresses closing at the same time, marking the second key milestone in this nine-year-old exchange orderly wind-down timeline. CoinEx founder Haipo Yang announced on September 15 that the exchange would cease operations entirely, citing a prolonged downturn in the cryptocurrency market, a significant contraction in industry-wide trading volume and liquidity, and rising regulatory requirements and compliance costs across major jurisdictions that had exceeded a reasonable, sustainable range. Unlike many exchanges over the past few years that vanished overnight due to hacks, fraud, or liquidity collapse, CoinEx chose a comparatively rare path this time: not a forced closure, but a voluntary, planned, staged exit.
CoinEx published wind-down process in four stages. September 15: new user registrations and referral rewards stopped, futures contracts moved into reduce-only mode. September 22, today: margin trading, crypto loans, staking, and Earn, all non-spot services, shut down entirely, and most on-chain deposit addresses other than CET stopped functioning. September 29: all spot trading pairs close, and CoinEx Smart Chain (CSC) along with OneSwap stop operating as well. December 22, 02:00 UTC: the withdrawal channel officially closes, marking the exchange complete shutdown. CoinEx emphasized that its current Reserve Ratio exceeds 100%, meaning every user asset is fully backed and available for complete withdrawal.
After December 22, any USDT still sitting on the platform unwithdrawn gets moved into an independent custody account and begins accruing a monthly fee equal to 5% of the original balance, a rate that means if assets are simply left untouched, roughly 20 months later the balance value would be essentially eaten away by fees. Users can still submit a custody claim through the official email up until August 22, 2028 to recover their assets, but the entire process requires re-verifying identity, and any custody fees already accrued are non-refundable. As for CoinEx own Token CET, the exchange is offering an uncapped buyback at $0.005 per token between September 15 and 29, a price slightly above the market rate before the announcement, around $0.00466; once the buyback window closes, any CET remaining in user accounts gets automatically force-repurchased at the same price, with no option to keep holding the token itself.
CoinEx official announcement attributes the shutdown entirely to macro market conditions and compliance costs, but it is worth noting that this decision came just three months after a major reputational crisis. In June, The Wall Street Journal and blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs published reports alleging that CoinEx had, over the previous seven years, helped process roughly $3.84 billion in fund flows connected to sanctioned Iranian entities, with about $2.7 billion of that counterparty activity involving Nobitex, Iran largest domestic exchange, and TRM Labs also traced roughly $6 million in transactions linked to wallets connected to Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). CoinEx strongly denied the allegations, arguing that on-chain fund flows alone do not prove the platform had knowledge of or participated in illicit activity, and said it had strengthened geo-fencing restrictions and sanctions screening for users in Iranian regions. Public information cannot confirm whether a direct causal link exists between that reputational crisis and the shutdown decision three months later, but the close timing between the two events is itself a detail that has received comparatively little attention in coverage of this exit.
If you still have assets on CoinEx, the most immediate action is to log in and inventory your balances as soon as possible, prioritizing withdrawal of less liquid tokens in their original form, particularly ones that may get delisted or force-converted into USDT once spot trading closes September 29, rather than waiting until close to December 22, since chain congestion or platform-side processing speed could both slow down withdrawals as that deadline approaches. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), commenting publicly on this wave of small and mid-tier exchange exits, noted that a shared feature across this round of closures is that users can still withdraw normally, a stark contrast to catastrophic past cases like QuadrigaCX, where the founder died suddenly and assets simply vanished. That represents genuine progress in process quality across the industry, but it also points to a broader structural reality: mid-tier exchanges are being squeezed between two forces, spot trading volume continuing to concentrate at a handful of large platforms, and compliance costs that do not fall alongside declining revenue. CoinEx is unlikely to be the last exchange this year to make the same choice.