MEXC

Is MEXC safe?

MEXC is safe from hackers on the record so far, but not well protected by any regulator. We found no theft of customer funds from its wallets, and its monthly reserve figures show more coins than it owes users. The problem is everything around that. No strict regulator licenses it, the company behind it was hard even for its home regulator to identify, and Dubai fined it in 2026 for years of unlicensed business. We score it 45/100, below KuCoin and above HTX.

The practical risk for most users is not a hack. It is a frozen account with nowhere to appeal.

Who runs MEXC?

This is harder to answer than it should be. MEXC's original operator, MEXC Global LTD, was a Seychelles company. Seychelles' Financial Services Authority says it was struck off the register in August 2023 and dissolved in December 2024. After Seychelles' new virtual-asset law took effect in January 2025, no company linked to MEXC applied for a licence.

In 2026 the FSA said it had "positively and conclusively" identified MX Global Ltd, another Seychelles company, as the operator. It added that MX Global has never held a licence and that, because the company is unlicensed, the FSA cannot investigate complaints or help users get money back. In September 2025 the Dutch regulator, the AFM, warned that MEXC is not licensed in the Netherlands and that it was unclear which legal entity was responsible.

The Dubai fine

Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority issued an alert about MEXC on 5 March 2026 and a notice of fines in June 2026. VARA found that MX Global LTD had provided exchange and broker-dealer services to people in Dubai without a licence from 2022 to April 2026, and had onboarded users without meeting UAE know-your-customer rules. It ordered MEXC to stop all unlicensed activity in or from Dubai and did not publish the fine amount. VARA said the company cooperated, complied with the cease-and-desist order and intends to apply for a licence.

Regulator	Date	Action
AFM (Netherlands)	September 2025	Public warning: unlicensed
VARA (Dubai)	March and June 2026	Alert, then fines and cease-and-desist
FSA (Seychelles)	2026	Enforcement notice: operating without a licence

The Netherlands is the first market MEXC has left. On 12 August 2026 Kraken said MEXC was winding down its Dutch offering, spot and derivatives, and referring those customers to Kraken'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-licensed EU business. MEXC called it a realignment of its regional strategy; it holds no MiCA licence of its own.

None of these is a criminal case, which is why MEXC's legal record scores above KuCoin's or Binance's. But a regulator saying it cannot help you recover funds matters more to a customer than the size of any fine.

Frozen accounts

MEXC suspends accounts and holds balances when it suspects market abuse or automated trading against its rules. In July 2025 a trader known online as The White Whale said MEXC had frozen about $3 million and told him the funds would be forfeited because he placed two orders within the same second. The case became public, bitcoin withdrawals from MEXC jumped, and on 31 October 2025 chief strategy officer Cecilia Hsueh apologised publicly and said the money had been released. She promised a faster channel for unresolved account cases. The trader said hundreds of other users had reported similar freezes.

Reserves

MEXC publishes a monthly 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 using 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, so you can check that your balance was included. In June 2026 it reported 12,656 BTC in its wallets against 4,699 BTC owed to users (269%), ETH at 118%, USDT at 114% and USDC at 125%. Since November 2025 the blockchain security firm Hacken has checked each monthly snapshot: that the Merkle tree is built correctly, that MEXC controls the listed wallets and that reserves cover user balances. MEXC says Hacken publishes its reports without MEXC's approval; we could not open Hacken's site to read them. Hacken is not an accounting firm, and MEXC publishes no audited accounts, so you still cannot see its other debts. Bybit uses the same kind of Hacken check.

How to limit your risk on MEXC

1. Keep only what you are actively trading on MEXC and withdraw the rest to your own wallet.
2. Do not use bots, API scripts or high-frequency strategies without reading the terms; suspected automated trading was the reason MEXC gave in the 2025 freeze.
3. Complete identity checks before depositing, so a later review does not lock a large balance.
4. Use an authenticator app or security key and a withdrawal allowlist.
5. If you are in the EU, UK or Dubai, a licensed platform such as Bitstamp gives you a regulator to complain to.

How we scored it

Licensing (10) is MEXC's weakest factor: it has no licence anywhere we checked, and its home jurisdiction says it never applied. Security history (68) is its strongest, because there is no reported hack of customer funds, held back by the 2025 freeze dispute. 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 (60) gains from Hacken's monthly checks but has no accountant behind it. Custody (30) reflects that no regulator watches how customer assets are held.