CoinEx Token (CET) Buyback Fixed at 0.005 USDT as Exchange Ceases Operations

Spot Trading Ends Sept. 29

CoinEx will shut down its centralized exchange entirely, ending spot trading on Sept. 29 and closing platform withdrawals on Dec. 22, 2026, according to the cessation notice the company published on Sept. 14. The staged wind-down began on Sept. 15: new registrations stopped, and futures markets switched to reduce-only mode, a setting that lets traders close existing perpetual contracts but blocks any new or enlarged positions. From Sept. 22, all non-spot services — fiat, margin, lending, Earn, staking and strategic trading — will end alongside most on-chain deposits. Spot markets stay open until Sept. 29, when unfilled order types across the book will be canceled and non-USDT balances enter conversion. The company attributed the exit to a prolonged market downturn, shrinking liquidity and compliance costs it no longer considers reasonable, while stating that user balances remain fully backed with a reserve ratio above 100%.

CEO Haipo Yang Confirms the Exit

CoinEx chief executive Haipo Yang publicly confirmed the decision, writing that after much reflection he had accepted “a hard truth” — that the exchange never became one of the industry’s leading platforms and that the security and compliance risks of running one had grown increasingly difficult to contain. The exchange, founded in December 2017 by mining pool ViaBTC, ranked 33rd among venues with roughly $58 million in daily volume before the announcement. Its closure extends a 2026 pattern that has already claimed BitMart, BitMEX and AscendEX, each citing comparable pressure on volumes and regulatory overhead.

Haipo Yang’s announcement post on X

https://x.com/yhaiyang/status/2099680499094737251

CET Buyback Priced Above Market

Holders of CoinEx Token (CET) receive a defined exit above the market. The exchange will maintain a 0.005 USDT buy order on the CET/USDT pair through Sept. 29 with zero fees and no quantity cap, and any CET left in accounts afterward converts automatically at the same rate. Market data on Tuesday showed CET changing hands around $0.00466, roughly 7% under the guaranteed repurchase level and about 97% below its July 2018 peak of $0.15029 — a nine-year drawdown that tracks the platform’s own decline. The shutdown also terminates CoinEx Smart Chain and the OneSwap decentralized exchange the same day, leaving network nodes and the DeFi venue offline, while the CSC cross-chain bridge redemption window closes simultaneously.

A History of Regulatory and Security Pressure

The exit caps years of mounting external pressure. In 2023, CoinEx settled with the New York Attorney General, paying $1,172,971.50 in refunds to 4,691 New York investors plus $626,133.88 to the state after a lawsuit over unregistered broker-dealer activity, and agreed to withdraw from the US market. June 2026 brought fresh scrutiny when a Wall Street Journal report tied $3.84 billion in transactions to Iran-related entities; the company disputed the interpretation and said it hardened sanctions screening and monitoring afterward. Security researchers had also flagged a September 2023 hot-wallet compromise with losses near $70 million, which on-chain analysts linked to wallets associated with North Korea’s Lazarus Group before the exchange rebuilt its wallet infrastructure.

Deadlines Users Face

Practical constraints now dominate for remaining users. Assets without external liquidity must be withdrawn before Sept. 29 at 02:00 UTC or risk conversion into USDT through batch sales. Withdrawals stay open until 02:00 UTC on Dec. 22; any USDT left beyond that date moves to independent custody and accrues a monthly fee equal to 5% of the recorded balance, with claims accepted until Aug. 22, 2028. ViaBTC separately confirmed it will disable its “Withdrawal to CoinEx” feature on Sept. 22 and told automated miners to update destination addresses. The company also cautioned that any “new announcements” issued in its name going forward are fraudulent, while CoinEx Wallet and CoinEx Vault continue operating outside the closure. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Tighter Margins for Mid-Tier Exchanges

Read together, the five disclosures sketch the same arc that took down BitMEX and AscendEX: shrinking volumes cannot fund a compliance bill that keeps rising. The load-bearing document here is the exchange’s own cessation notice, which states that reserves exceed 100% and that users retain full withdrawal rights through Dec. 22 — the two claims that determine whether this exit is orderly or distressed. The 0.005 USDT CET buyback, priced above the open market, is the cleanest signal the operator intends to honor balances rather than strand them. For traders choosing venues in this environment, our guide to the best crypto exchanges weighs exactly the reserve transparency and jurisdictional footprint factors that decided CoinEx’s fate.