Sept 15 (Reuters) – Hong Kong-based crypto exchange CoinEx said on Tuesday it would shut down, citing a prolonged downturn in crypto markets as well as rising security and compliance costs.
CoinEx said it would gradually cease services from September 15, with withdrawals remaining available until December 22.
Weak cryptocurrency markets, shrinking trading volumes and liquidity, and steadily rising regulatory requirements across major jurisdictions had all “exceeded reasonable boundaries”, CoinEx said in a statement on its website.
“CoinEx did not become one of the industry’s leading exchanges, and the security and compliance risks of running a crypto exchange have become increasingly difficult to contain,” founder Haipo Yang said in a post on X.
Launched in 2017, CoinEx had “millions” of users, Yang said, without providing a precise figure.
A June report by U.S. crypto research company TRM Labs identified CoinEx as the largest single counterparty to Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex, which was placed under U.S. sanctions earlier that month for allegedly helping Iran circumvent Western sanctions.
TRM said trading volumes between CoinEx and Iranian exchanges fell after the U.S. imposed sanctions on several Iranian exchanges in June.
CoinEx did not respond to a Reuters request for comment about the TRM report or its alleged links to Iran, sent outside Hong Kong business hours.
In a statement on X in June in response to a Wall Street Journal report, CoinEx said it had never had a commercial relationship with Iranian government-linked entities or domestic Iranian exchanges. It added that it had stopped onboarding Iranian users after the sanctions were imposed.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has fallen sharply this year, dropping about 50% from its October 2025 peak of nearly $130,000 to around $60,000 in June.
A recent rebound driven by concerns about dollar debasement proved short-lived amid uncertainty over a potential Federal Reserve rate hike and the proposed U.S. Clarity Act, a key cryptocurrency bill.
Average daily bitcoin spot trading volume fell to about $2.2 billion in July, the lowest since November 2023, before declining further to around $1.8 billion in August, suggesting market participation had fallen to near three-year lows, according to digital asset manager ChainUp Investment.
CoinEx said it maintained an asset-reserve ratio above 100% and that all customer assets were fully backed and available for withdrawal.
(Reporting Jiaxing Li in Hong Kong, Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru and Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; Editing by Janane Venkatraman, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Mark Potter)
