In brief
- CoinEx will formally close on Dec. 22, 2026, nine years to the day after it launched, with new signups already halted and spot trading ending Sept. 29.
- Founder and CEO Haipo Yang said he rejected a sale in favor of a “clean ending,” and CoinEx will repurchase its CET token at its original 0.005 USDT listing price with no cap.
- CoinEx joins BitMEX and BitMart in a wave of 2026 exchange closures, months after facing separate scrutiny over alleged Iran-linked crypto flows.
Cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx said Tuesday it will cease operations and begin an orderly wind-down, closing the exchange on Dec. 22—nine years to the day after it went live in 2017. Users have until that deadline to withdraw their funds.
Founder and CEO Haipo Yang tied the decision to a mix of prolonged market weakness and mounting compliance demands. “The security and compliance risks of running a crypto exchange have become increasingly difficult to contain,” Yang wrote on X, framing the closure as a deliberate exit rather than a forced one.
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Yang said he seriously considered selling CoinEx but decided against it. He wanted what he called a “clean ending” for the platform's staff, users, and CoinEx token holders, rather than handing the exchange to a new owner.
The wind-down follows a fixed schedule. New account registrations and referral rewards stopped immediately, and futures trading moved into reduce-only mode.
Non-spot services shut down Sept. 22, spot trading ends Sept. 29, and withdrawals close for good on Dec. 22.
Holders of CoinEx's native token, which trades as CET, get a built-in off-ramp too. From Sept. 15 through Sept. 29, CoinEx will buy back the token at 0.005 USDT—its original listing price—with no cap on volume, then automatically convert any remaining balances at the same rate.
CoinEx said its reserve ratio sits above 100%, meaning user assets remain fully backed throughout the process. Its reported 24-hour trading volume was in the tens of millions of dollars around the time of the announcement, far below the largest global exchanges.
The closure adds CoinEx to a growing list of exchanges folding this year. BitMEX announced it would shut down its operations after 11 years, and BitMart followed days later, winding down its own nine-year run.
CoinEx's exit also comes months after separate scrutiny over its ties to Iran. TRM Labs alleged in June that more than $3.8 billion had flowed between CoinEx and dozens of sanctioned Iranian platforms over seven years, a claim the exchange denied at the time.
Withdrawals remain open until Dec. 22, 2026, when CoinEx formally shuts its doors for good.