BitMart Completes Two Top-50 User Talks and Starts Restructuring Legal Drafting

Two Rounds With the Top 50

BitMart has completed two formal negotiation rounds with invited top-50 users and has started drafting the long-form legal documents that will underpin its proposed repayment options, according to a progress update the exchange posted to its official customer-support center on Nov. 13. The company said the sessions with these users took place on Nov. 2 and Nov. 12, and that their feedback is now being reviewed as the core input for the terms of the recovery plan. Drafting of the detailed paperwork follows the indicative timetable set out at the end of September.

The exchange entered this process after a difficult summer. It announced on July 26 that it would wind down platform operations in an orderly manner, closed spot and contract trading services on Aug. 26, and set Jan. 31, 2027 as the formal end of operations. Withdrawals were supposed to stay open, but many users reported funds stuck or blocked, and the episode fueled public doubts about whether the platform could still honor customer balances.

In September, BitMart appointed law firm White & Case as legal adviser and advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal as financial adviser. A Sept. 30 disclosure then acknowledged a balance sheet shortfall of roughly $319.5 million at then-market prices, traced to losses from a 2021 hack. The proposed fix is a court-sanctioned restructuring: pro-rata distribution of existing liquid assets in fiat, stablecoins or major coins, plus tokens tied to assets recovered in the future. Under that schedule, after October consultations and November plan adjustments, the exchange aims to ask the relevant courts to approve the plan between December 2026 and January 2027.

The update stops short of specifics: it gives no repayment ratio, no final option details and no date for reopening withdrawals, and comments under the announcement pressed for exactly that. BitMart also issued a fraud warning, stating that it never asks users for passwords, 2FA codes, private key material or seed phrases, and that no paid expedited withdrawal service exists anywhere in the market.

Weekly MACD Flips Negative

The other thread this week is technical. Bitcoin's weekly MACD histogram, the moving-average convergence divergence gauge that tracks shifts in trend momentum, has dipped below zero, a bearish turn that gets confirmed if the bar is still negative at Sunday's weekly close. At the time of the reading, bitcoin traded near $69,000 after breaking below $70,000 for the first time since August. Ether slipped under $2,000, heavy liquidations swept through futures trading , and the U.S. Dollar Index reached a 19-month high, a combination that has pressured crypto all week.

The turn has already drawn warnings. Josh Taylor, founder and lead contributor at analytics firm 7th Key Financial, said in a post on X that bitcoin is headed lower, with the weekly MACD rolling over in a bear cross. Several other observers on X flagged the same reading and cautioned against expecting a quick bottom, and trader chatter about a deeper bear market has picked up.

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The historical record on this indicator is long. Since November 2012, the weekly MACD has turned bearish 24 times, and in 13 of those instances, roughly half, bitcoin went on to lose at least 16% from the price at confirmation before the gauge flipped positive again. Five of the 13 slides reached that mark within a week and 10 within four weeks, with a median of three weeks. The fastest cases were severe: a 38% slump in a single week in November 2018 and a 35% weekly loss in February 2014, while the slowest, the August 2025 signal, took 12 weeks. In the worst cases, including August 2014 and April 2022, bitcoin lost more than half its value. The most recent signal, in June, was mild: bitcoin fell only 3% to $57,700 before rebounding.

The signal lands while institutions pull money from spot ETFs and a strong dollar weighs on risk assets. COINOTAG's read: the two stories meet on BitMart's balance sheet. The exchange's own Sept. 30 disclosure lists pro-rata payouts in fiat, stablecoins or major coins among the proposed recovery options, so a repeat of the historical 16% slide toward the $57,700 low would directly shrink the pool from which creditors are repaid while they wait for a court-approved plan. The drafting phase now under way will define how those distribution assets are valued, and 10 of the past 24 bearish MACD signals reached the 16% mark within four weeks, leaving little slack in a timetable that targets court filings by January. The fraud warning deserves equal attention: BitMart states it never requests credentials or seed phrases, and users should rely only on official channels.