CoinEx

Is CoinEx safe?

CoinEx is closing, so the only question left is how to get your money out. It announced on 15 September 2026 that it would cease operations; trading has stopped, and withdrawals end on 22 December 2026.

Until then it was a middle-of-the-pack offshore exchange. It survived a large hack in September 2023 that analysts linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group, said it repaid every affected user, and has published its own proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary since. Against that, it has no licence from a strict regulator, it left the US after a settlement with New York's attorney general, and Thailand had it blocked in 2025 for operating without a licence.

We score it 45/100, level with MEXC and close to KuCoin (49), two other offshore exchanges with US settlements behind them. Regulated exchanges such as Kraken (84) score far higher, mostly on licensing and audited reserves.

CoinEx is shutting down

CoinEx's announcement of 15 September 2026 blamed a long market downturn, falling trading volume and "continuously rising regulatory requirements across major jurisdictions". It set out a timetable:

Date	What stops
15 September 2026	New accounts; futures move to close-only; no new earn, loan, margin or fiat orders
22 September 2026	Futures, earn, staking, loans and fiat; deposits (except CET); open futures positions settled at the index price
29 September 2026	Spot trading; leftover CET bought back at 0.005 USDT; CoinEx Smart Chain and OneSwap close
22 December 2026, 02:00 UTC	Withdrawals

CoinEx says its reserve ratio is above 100% and that all user assets can be withdrawn. Since 29 September it has been selling remaining non-USDT coins on outside markets and crediting USDT at the prices it gets; coins with no outside market are delisted, and CoinEx says it no longer takes responsibility for them. After 22 December, USDT left behind moves into custody with a fee of 5% of the balance each month, and claims close on 22 August 2028.

CoinEx says this is its final announcement, so any later "new rules" or "compensation" message in its name is fake. CoinEx Wallet and CoinEx Vault are run separately and are not part of the closure.

The September 2023 hack

On 12 September 2023 CoinEx said its risk-control system had detected "anomalous withdrawals" from several hot walletsHot walletA crypto wallet connected to the internet, such as an app or an exchange's online wallet. It is convenient, but more exposed to hacking.More in the glossary holding exchange assets. It suspended deposits and withdrawals, published the attacker's addresses and asked other platforms to freeze the funds.

Estimates of the loss grew as more addresses were found: Elliptic counted about $54 million, and some later reports put it closer to $70 million. Elliptic traced part of the stolen funds to an address that had laundered money from the Stake.com theft a few weeks earlier, then across a bridge Lazarus had used before. In its words, absent signs of any other group, "Lazarus Group should be suspected". That is an analyst's attribution, not a court finding.

CoinEx promised full compensation and rebuilt its wallet system before reopening withdrawals. We found no reports of customers who were not made whole, which puts its security history in the range we use for a hack with full reimbursement.

Proof of reserves, self-reported

CoinEx publishes reserve snapshots every few months. Each lists the ratio of coins it holds on-chain to customer balances for its main assets; the September 2025 snapshot showed every listed coin at or above 100%. A Merkle treeMerkle treeA way to combine many records into one short code, so that each person can check their own record is included without seeing anyone else's.More in the glossary lets each user check that their own balance is counted in the liabilities. CoinEx says it has run a full-reserve policy since it launched in 2017 and does not use customer assets.

The weakness is that CoinEx produces all of this itself. No accounting firm attests to the figures, there are no published audited accounts, and a Merkle tree proves only that your balance is included, not that the company has no other debts. That is why the reserves score stops at 50.

Licensing and the New York case

New York's attorney general sued Vino Global Limited, which trades as CoinEx, in February 2023. The office said its investigator had opened an account and traded from New York although CoinEx was not registered as a securities and commodities broker-dealer, and that it wrongly presented itself as an exchange. The June 2023 settlement required:

• refunds of $1,172,971.50 to 4,691 New York investors;
• more than $600,000 in penalties;
• blocking of New York IP addresses, no new US accounts, and withdraw-only access for existing US customers.

CoinEx's terms now list the US, Canada, the UK, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, mainland China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Iran, North Korea and Cuba as prohibited jurisdictions. That leaves it serving mostly markets with light crypto rules, and it is not on ESMA's MiCAMiCAThe EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which requires crypto exchanges and other providers to be licensed and supervised.More in the glossary register.

Some of those markets are pushing back. On 29 May 2025 Thailand's SEC said it had filed complaints against CoinEx, Bybit, OKX, XT.COM and 1000X for serving Thai users without a licence, and that the platforms would be blocked from 28 June. It warned that users of unlicensed services have no protection under Thai law.

If you still have money on CoinEx

1. Withdraw before 22 December 2026. Do not wait for the last days: some networks get congested and fees rise.
2. Send to a wallet you control or a licensed exchange, and test the address with a small amount first.
3. Check your transaction history against what you held. Coins sold for USDT after 29 September should show as sales.
4. Ignore anyone offering to "unfreeze" funds or pay compensation. CoinEx says it will never ask for keys, codes or transfers, and it has said it will post no further announcements.

How we scored it

The scores describe CoinEx's record up to its closure; the main risk now is missing the withdrawal deadline. Security history (62) is CoinEx's strongest factor: a large hack, but customers were covered according to the company. Licensing (20) is the weakest, with no licence in a strict jurisdiction and a block in Thailand. Reserves (50) credits regular self-published snapshots with a Merkle treeMerkle treeA way to combine many records into one short code, so that each person can check their own record is included without seeing anyone else's.More in the glossary but no auditor, and legal record (45) reflects the New York settlement and the Thai complaints. Confidence is medium: the settlement and hack analysis are primary or from named analytics firms, but CoinEx's own site was blocked from our location.