AscendEX said it stopped operating on July 1 after the MiCA transition period ended.
Following its exit, ZachXBT warned the public about the platform’s liquidity, alleging that it wouldn’t be able to process customer withdrawals.
In its announcement, the crypto exchange said that it was winding down due to challenging market conditions and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which left several crypto firms unable to operate in the region after failing to obtain the required authorization.
Following the decision, account access has been limited to offboarding processes, while automated withdrawals have been paused. The exchange said all withdrawal requests will now go through manual reviews and may be delayed, require additional information, or fail to be processed.
“We are not in a position to give assurances about timing or amounts today. No account holder or group of account holders is given priority outside the documented review process,” read the notice.
ZachXBT had previously shared on Telegram that several of the platform’s users were experiencing withdrawal delays for days or weeks, with some requests not being processed at all. The blockchain detective said his analysis found that AscendEX’s hot wallets had almost no reserves of major assets such as USDT, ETH, USDC, and SOL, leading him to believe that it was facing liquidity challenges.
Community reports corroborated the situation, with many individuals who had tried to move funds out of the exchange saying their transactions had been stuck in “initiating” for over a week. In a follow-up post, ZachXBT claimed that the platform has yet to process over 7 figures worth of transactions for its users.
He also urged the affected to take legal action by filing police reports and speaking to the relevant regulators in their countries to hold the platform accountable.
The exchange, founded in 2018 by George (Jing) Cao, was once a major crypto platform. However, AscendEX fell victim to a hack in December 2021 that drained about $78 million in digital assets.
In its statement, the firm said that its decision to shut down was heavily influenced by financial and operational issues, explaining that a strategic transaction meant to provide liquidity had failed. It added that market conditions had also contributed to the pressure, causing the company to assess its financial positio
小靓分析：
🦊 小靓解读
AscendEX 因 MiCA 监管过渡期结束和经营困难于7月1日停运，ZachXBT 警告其流动性不足，用户提现困难，这暴露了未获欧盟牌照的交易所面临的合规风险。
📊 市场影响
短期可能引发用户对中小型交易所的信任危机，导致资金向合规平台（如 OKX、Binance 欧盟版）迁移，但影响范围有限，不构成系统性风险。
💡 操作建议
建议交易者优先选择持有 MiCA 牌照或主要监管合规的交易所，避免将大额资产留存于未获授权的小平台；提现受阻用户需耐心配合人工审核，切勿急于转账至不明地址。
风险提示：
该资讯来源于公开渠道，仅供参考。Traceless 无痕智盈平台不对此信息准确性做任何保证。