On September 15, 2026, on what was an ordinary bear market day, CoinEx announced its exit: the exchange declared that it would cease operations and initiate an orderly liquidation process, not a panic shutdown, but a gradual winding down according to a predetermined schedule. Starting that same day, the platform stopped new user registrations and referral rewards, and adjusted its contract and futures business to a position-only model; one week later, on September 22, all non-spot services would be terminated; another week later, on September 29, spot trading would come to an end; until December 22, 2026, when the withdrawal channels would be closed and the platform would officially stop operating. In the announcement, CoinEx provided a buyback price for the CET token of 0.005 USDT/CET and emphasized that the platform's asset reserve ratio was “over 100%,” attempting to convey a message to users: this was not a chaotic loss of control after a funding chain break, but a proactively planned exit. In explaining the reasons, CoinEx pointed towards larger cycles and environments — since the FTX incident in 2022, major jurisdictions such as the United States, the European Union, and Hong Kong have continued to tighten regulations on exchanges, with increasing demands for KYC/AML, asset custody, and operational transparency, pushing compliance costs for small to medium platforms to unsustainable levels; in contrast, the long-term downturn from 2022 to 2026 significantly reduced overall trading volume and liquidity in the industry, with revenue sharply declining for models reliant on trading fees, yet it is difficult to simultaneously compress the rigid expenditures on technology and compliance. Research briefs indicate that CoinEx’s choice to exit with a public timetable, a priced buyback, and “orderly liquidation” stands in stark contrast to some exchanges that suddenly fled or hurriedly went bankrupt historically; this exit action itself has become a clear footnote to the shrinking survival space for small and medium exchanges under the intensified regulation of a bear market, with the industry trend gravitating towards consolidation.
Details of CoinEx's Timetable for Shutdown
The exit plan in the announcement did not only provide an endpoint date but was broken down into a series of continuous "shutdown steps." On September 15, 2026, CoinEx first shut down the entry point — stopping new user registrations and referral rewards, while also adjusting its most leveraged contract and futures business to a position-only model, meaning that from this moment onward, existing positions could only be closed, not increased. The platform sealed off new risks while giving existing users some time to manage, and this rhythm silently informed the market: this was not an instantaneous shutdown, but an exit executed according to schedule.
Subsequently, the timetable shrank operations layer by layer. The announcement specified that CoinEx planned to stop all non-spot services on September 22, followed by halting spot trading on September 29, bringing all matching activities to zero within two weeks, retaining only the function for account assets and withdrawal channels. The final endpoint was set for December 22, 2026 — on this day, the withdrawal channels would be closed and the platform would officially cease operations. For users still on the platform, this timeline served as both the final "escape route" and the liquidation rules: the fate of the CET token was specified, with a buyback price of 0.005 USDT/CET, while CoinEx repeatedly emphasized its asset reserve ratio “exceeded 100%” in the same announcement. In an industry environment where trust in exchanges had already become fragile, this timetable - from restricting trading to closing withdrawals, combined with CET pricing and full reserve commitments - essentially sought to establish the most predictable and verifiable safety boundaries for an exit through precise dates and figures.
Small and Medium Exchanges Squeezed by Bear Market and Strong Regulation
This concrete exit plan anchored by dates and figures was not a whimsical "dignified farewell" from CoinEx, but rather a rational choice influenced by prevailing conditions. Since the outbreak of the FTX incident in 2022, major jurisdictions such as the United States, the European Union, and Hong Kong have rapidly tightened regulatory restrictions on exchanges, with stricter KYC and AML requirements, asset custody standards, and operational transparency regarding reserves, risk control, and information disclosure all elevated to unprecedented heights almost simultaneously. For any platform whose core business revolves around facilitating trades, this means that its already substantial compliance costs have continuously escalated, and are very rigid, unable to be flexibly reduced like marketing budgets in line with market conditions.
The problem is that rising costs coincide with a downward trajectory in income during the bear market. From 2022 to 2026, the crypto market experienced a prolonged slump, significantly shrinking overall trading volume and liquidity, causing nearly all exchanges reliant on trading fees as their primary revenue source to struggle on the same downhill path. CoinEx did not conceal this point in its announcement: the prolonged slump in the crypto market, the significant contraction of trading volume and liquidity, plus the heightened regulatory requirements from major jurisdictions and the continuous escalation of compliance costs that “exceeded reasonable limits” were highlighted as important reasons for the decision to cease operations. Placing these within the industry context reveals that CoinEx was merely candidly expressing the shared dilemmas of small to medium platforms — under the dual pressures of a bear market and stringent regulation, reduced trading volumes lead to less revenue, heightened compliance thresholds cannot eliminate costs, and the competitive landscape naturally concentrates towards larger players, squeezing the survival space of small exchanges to an increasingly thin margin, eventually forcing them to choose between proactive exits and passive withdrawals.
Squeezed Fee Income and Cost Pressure
If you lay open the books of an exchange, the bulkiest income line usually comes from only two sources: spot matching and the trading fees of derivative contracts. Regardless of how the platform packages “ecosystem” and “innovative business”, the vast majority of cash flow is still tightly bound to the three words “trading volume” — every time a user places an order, the proportional fees extracted add up to sustain server operations, risk control, customer service, and the entire team’s functioning. Thus, this is a business model highly sensitive to market sentiment: once overall trading volume declines, income does not slowly slip away but is almost simultaneously “trimmed” sharply, with users hesitating in a bear market, leverage retracting, causing cash flow to diminish immediately.
The issue lies in the fact that while cash flow can fluctuate with market sentiments, costs do not respond as obediently. Research briefs indicate that the prolonged market slump has led to a sharp drop in exchange income, while operations and compliance represent relatively fixed costs. Since the FTX incident in 2022, major jurisdictions such as the United States, the European Union, and Hong Kong have strengthened regulatory demands on exchanges — elevating KYC/AML, asset custody, auditing, and information disclosure to higher standards, corresponding to real-world rigid expenditures: expansions of risk control and compliance teams, costs for third-party audits and custody, and long-term investments in system transformations and process restructurings. These costs are difficult to “catch the wind” like the market and do not automatically halve just because trading volumes are cut in half. In an environment where income is declining and costs are rigid, small to medium exchanges with lesser scale, weak bargaining power, and a lack of diverse income streams experience their profit margins pressured even faster, their cash flow defenses thinner, often being forced to make difficult but rational business decisions between continuing to struggle and opting for an orderly exit.
Orderly Liquidation Rather than Sudden Collapse
At a point where profit margins have been compressed to the limit, CoinEx chose a relatively “decent” path to exit. In its September 15 announcement, it first announced the cessation of new user registrations and referral rewards, adjusting contract and futures operations to a position-only mode, followed by laying out a complete shutdown timeline: halting all non-spot services on September 22, going offline for spot trading on September 29, until closing withdrawal channels and officially stopping operations on December 22. Meanwhile, the announcement clearly outlined how user assets would be handled and CET would be repurchased — offering a buyback price of 0.005 USDT/CET, promising fulfillment during the exit process, and repeatedly emphasizing the platform's asset reserve ratio “exceeded 100%”. For existing users, this meant not suddenly discovering the webpage inaccessible or the app unresponsive one morning, but being informed of the exit channels and time windows at a predictable pace.
Research briefs also juxtapose this “orderly liquidation” with past instances where platforms suddenly faced crises, announcing bankruptcy or going directly dark: numerous exchanges have passively acknowledged huge funding gaps only when crises erupted, locking user assets in lengthy, uncertain bankruptcy procedures, with their brands transforming overnight from “trading access” to “party seeking redress.” CoinEx's proactive delivery of a timetable and liquidation plan, along with emphasizing asset coverage rates, is thus more akin to a public, orderly business termination. In terms of user trust, this transparency does not negate the loss felt due to cessation of operations, but it at least lessened the anger of feeling “suddenly abandoned”; for brand reputation and potential legal disputes, the clear rhythm and written commitments can be seen as evidence of the platform fulfilling its reasonable informing and arranging obligations. In the context of the bear market flush, this orderly exit method, while perhaps not perfect, constitutes a relatively restrained choice available to small exchanges pressed for space.
Who Will Inherit the Battlefield After Industry Cleansing?
When viewed in a longer cycle, CoinEx's exit is merely a node in the chain of this round of bear market and strong regulations post-2022, an industry cleanup: since the FTX incident, the United States, the European Union, Hong Kong, and other major jurisdictions have continuously raised requirements for exchanges regarding KYC/AML, asset custody, and operational transparency, while the long-term slump from 2022 to 2026 has caused revenue pressures for platforms reliant on trading fee revenues. The contradiction between compliance costs and profitability has been prominently laid out, ultimately squeezing the survival space of small and medium exchanges. The industry concentration is thus naturally on the rise, with the players most likely to endure until the next cycle being those large platforms with substantial capital, capable of absorbing high compliance costs, and able to maintain high standards in information disclosure and asset management. For users, CoinEx's orderly liquidation through announcing a complete timeline and CET buyback price, as well as committing to asset reserve rates, offers a reference framework for assessing platform exit paths: keeping a close eye on whether asset reserves and custody structures are clearly disclosed, whether there's proactive acceptance of third-party auditing, and whether historical responses to regulation and business adjustments have been transparent. From the project parties' perspective, the ability to meet KYC/AML and information disclosure requirements in major jurisdictions, as well as preparedness for extreme market conditions and exit processes, is becoming a key threshold for selecting partner exchanges, which will determine who can continue to stand at the center of the table in the next round of structural reshuffling.
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