A trading platform operating for nine years, with a peak annual transaction volume of $554 billion, is taking a path few have completed: not fleeing, not collapsing in scandal, but actually finishing the act of "shutting down" itself.

I. An Anonymous DM Brings BitMart Back Into the Spotlight

On September 4, the founder of prediction market platform Foreso, "Mai Kuijin," posted a notably firm statement on X:

"Someone just sent us a private message via our official and personal Twitter accounts, demanding we delist all BitMart-related prediction markets within three days, or face 'attack'—even accusing us of feeding off human blood. The account was registered in October 2025, with only two followers. My response was simple: we won’t delist. We won’t delete the markets. We won’t negotiate via private messages. Prediction markets price publicly verifiable events, not emotions. If you fear being priced, buy on the market; threats won’t resolve settlements. The markets will still be live after three days. On September 9, what matters is the roadmap—not this threatening message."

It must be clarified: there is no evidence this anonymous account represents BitMart’s official stance. It more likely reflects emotional overflow from users trapped in frozen funds—after all, in the crypto space, "using threats instead of trade" has never been an institutional PR strategy, only a retail language.

But the incident itself is a signal. It indicates that BitMart’s situation has evolved beyond a mere item in financial news—it has become a continuously priced, betted-on, and debated public event within the ecosystem. At the center of all these debates stands one clear date: September 9.

On that day, BitMart promised to release a restructuring roadmap.

II. Looking Back After Nine Years: What Kind of Exchange Was BitMart?

To understand today’s controversy, we must first know where it stood originally.

BitMart was founded in 2017 and officially launched on March 15, 2018, registered in the Cayman Islands, with Bachi.Tech as its operating entity. Founder Sheldon Xia holds a bachelor’s degree from Hangzhou Dianzi University and a master’s from Stevens Institute of Technology. He entered the crypto space in 2013, previously worked on DSCoin, and ultimately chose entrepreneurship over a career at Amazon—typical of a generation of Chinese-American crypto founders.

In scale, it was once a genuine platform. Officially disclosed, it had over 13 million registered users across more than 180 countries and regions, with a team nearing 500 people. Its total transaction volume reached $554 billion in 2022, with a historical daily spot trading peak of $7.395 billion, over 900 trading pairs listed, and 40 projects launched via its Launchpad. In Q3 2022, CoinGecko ranked it among the top ten global spot CEXs.

In compliance, it was one of the most committed Chinese-origin exchanges during its era. BitMart holds a U.S. FinCEN MSB registration, obtained a Lithuanian VASP license in August 2023, secured an Australian AFSL by 2026, completed FINTRAC registration in Canada, and established a presence in Hong Kong. From inception, it appointed a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and partnered with blockchain compliance providers such as Elliptic and Notabene.

In capital terms, it raised legitimate institutional funding. In 2020, it received equity investment from Fenbushi Capital; in November 2021, it closed a Series B round led by Alexander Capital Ventures, with an estimated valuation of $300 million.

Industry recognition: In 2022, it won the Hurun U.S. Best Innovation Award, Investopedia’s “Best Altcoin Exchange,” and IBM’s “Most Trusted Platform in the U.S.”; in 2023, IBM named it “World’s Best Crypto Exchange,” and Dubai’s Crypto 306 awarded it “Most Trustworthy Platform.”

This is not nostalgia. It forms the foundation for assessing how a company behaves when crisis hits—a defunct company typically wouldn’t spend nine years and real capital on licenses, audits, and compliance officers.

III. Summer 2026: A Wind-Down Driven by Industry Cycles

The timeline is public:

July 26: BitMart announced an orderly wind-down, halting new user signups, deposits, and open positions.

August 21 (nearly one month after the announcement): Official update stated they were developing a phased recovery and creditor distribution plan, hired White & Case as restructuring advisors, and pledged to deliver a clear roadmap by September 9.

August 26: Spot and derivatives trading services ceased. BMX token dropped over 60% within 24 hours of the announcement.

September 2: Special opportunity investment firm Echo Base led the formation of a temporary BitMart Creditors’ Committee, retained Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor and Ashbury Legal to evaluate enforcement paths, including potential forced bankruptcy.

CoinDesk, in its July 26 reporting, framed the event within the industry-wide trend of “retail user decline + rising compliance costs” and placed it alongside BitMEX. Notably, mainstream media has yet to use terms like “fraud” or “exit scam”—CoinDesk, The Block, and crypto.news all used “orderly wind-down.”

This is a crucial baseline: the core external skepticism centers on transparency and solvency, not intent.

IV. Orderly Exit Is Harder Than Running Away

This is truly the part worth writing about.

Over the past eight years, exchange “failures” have generally fallen into three categories:

Mount Gox-style: Assets were already gone, sustained for years, then revealed as a massive hole.

FTX-style: User funds were misappropriated to cover affiliated losses, with all withdrawals frozen on the day of exposure, and the founder admitting fraud in court.

Orderly wind-down style: Public acknowledgment of insolvency, cessation of incremental business, retention of existing exit channels, engagement of third-party professionals, and provision of a timeline.

BitMart is following the third path. Specifically:

It maintained withdrawal channels. CoinDesk has confirmed that BitMart’s withdrawals remained open during the wind-down period, with plans to continue until full closure on January 31, 2027—though the platform did warn that regulatory review and concentrated withdrawals could cause processing delays. This stands in stark contrast to FTX, which immediately blocked all user withdrawals upon collapse—a fundamentally different species.

It engaged White & Case. A top-tier law firm in cross-border restructuring. Hiring an external restructuring advisor signals two things: first, recognition that professional procedures are needed to resolve the issue; second, acceptance of external scrutiny. No one trying to run away would hire a lawyer.

It set a clear time anchor. The commitment to deliver a roadmap by September 9 was made voluntarily, without external coercion. This self-imposed deadline places the company under intense scrutiny—failure to deliver on that date would provoke far worse backlash than current sentiment. Willingness to set a hard deadline is itself a statement.

It maintained communication frequency. Since July 26, BitMart has consistently issued announcements and hosted AMAs, with CEO Sheldon Xia publicly denying fund misappropriation on August 8 and affirming ongoing asset consolidation and consideration of court oversight and third-party audits.

It has not denied user asset ownership. To date, all public statements from BitMart have refrained from asserting that user assets belong to the platform—this distinguishes it from some liquidation cases where platforms simply treat user balances as bankruptcy assets.

It must be acknowledged: these actions do not comfort users whose funds remain locked, nor do they constitute a presumption of innocence. But in the matter of “how an exchange exits with dignity,” BitMart offers a relatively noteworthy example. The industry will eventually need standardized exit protocols—and those processes are being forged case by case.

V. The Stress Test of 2021

The best evidence of a company’s crisis behavior lies in how it responded to its last crisis.

December 4, 2021: BitMart’s hot wallet private key was stolen. The company reported a loss of approximately $150 million; PeckShield and CNBC’s on-chain estimates ranged between $196 million and $200 million—among the largest exchange hacks of that year.

BitMart’s response: The CEO publicly vowed to fully cover the losses using personal funds, assuring users their assets were unaffected. Starting December 7, it resumed deposits and withdrawals in phases. CoinDesk’s 2026 retrospective described BitMart as having “covered customer losses.”

A necessary footnote: CNBC (January 2022), The Verge (January 9, 2022), and CertiK all reported that even five weeks post-event, a large number of victims claimed they had not received compensation. No independent third-party audit exists in public records to confirm that “full compensation” was 100% fulfilled.

Thus, the accurate statement should be: BitMart chose to take responsibility rather than deflect in that incident, initiating self-funded compensation and phased withdrawal restoration; however, the final completion rate of payouts remains unverified by any independent audit.

Even so, the behavioral pattern—“choosing to bear the cost when something goes wrong”—remains a valid benchmark for assessing current conduct.

VI. Remaining Controversies and the Countdown to September 9

A candid report cannot end here. Below are questions currently unanswered by BitMart—and must be addressed before September 9.

Reserve Fund Discrepancies

Under CoinMarketCap’s self-reported figures, BitMart’s reserves amount to only around $5.36 million (including ~$3.88 million in BMX tokens and ~$677k in ETH), while the platform’s daily trading volume hovers around $272.6 million—a ratio widely cited and central to arguments questioning solvency. However, Arkham’s on-chain tracking shows BitMart-related wallet balances totaling approximately $36.4 million, peaking above $100 million in early July.

The two figures differ by nearly sevenfold. This doesn’t necessarily mean either party is lying: CMC’s self-reporting mechanism has long suffered from severe underreporting, with exchanges typically disclosing only partial hot wallet addresses. On-chain data, meanwhile, cannot capture custodial accounts, market maker wallets, or cold storage. The real issue is that BitMart publicly committed on May 23, 2026, to releasing a Proof of Reserve (PoR), yet has failed to deliver—nor has it provided a Merkle Tree or third-party audit report.

In 2026, an exchange unable to produce a PoR is already the biggest negative asset. This isn’t a data formatting issue—it’s a trust mechanism failure. Including substantial amounts of its own BMX token in self-reported reserves is accounting-wise insufficient to cover actual liabilities.

Echo Base’s Allegations

This special opportunity investment firm claims it offered up to $10 million in funding for pre-negotiated bankruptcy restructuring on August 6, with no response from BitMart; its affiliate submitted a withdrawal request on July 24 (just 31 hours before BitMart’s public shutdown announcement), which was not executed, despite 15 recorded attempts to contact the platform. Echo Base CEO Roshan Dharia was particularly blunt:

"BitMart still has time to pursue an orderly wind-down. What it lacks is anyone willing to inject capital into this process."

These claims are currently one-sided, with no point-by-point rebuttal from BitMart. Yet the structural concern they raise is real: out-of-court wind-down lacks automatic stay protection, meaning any creditor can stall the entire process, and any uncontactable holder’s claim can be indefinitely suspended. Thus, the executability of the September 9 roadmap may matter more than its content.

Governance Concerns

The Block reported that BitMart Global CEO Nenter Chow stated he was dismissed on July 24, had no role in the shutdown decision, and learned of it simultaneously with the public—despite having, in his mid-year report, claimed “AUM grew 256% YoY” and expressed intent to “operate for another eight years.” On August 17, a self-identified employee briefly took over BitMart’s Chinese-language X account and presented five demands; Xia’s team claimed the account was hacked, while chain detective ZachXBT questioned the narrative. All are unilateral statements, but collectively they fuel external doubts about internal governance stability.

Conclusion

BitMart’s story has not concluded yet—it remains suspended before September 9.

For users whose funds remain on the platform, any characterization of “orderly” or “responsible” behavior rings hollow—they want their money back. This demand must not be obscured by any narrative.

But viewed from the industry level, this event holds an overlooked value: the crypto industry still lacks mature exit mechanisms for exchanges. Each platform collapse drains user confidence and presents an opportunity to build standardized procedures. BitMart is at least attempting to complete the “closure” process according to procedure—not vanishing in the middle of the night, shutting down its website, and deleting its Twitter.

It deserves to be documented—and deserves to be questioned.

On September 9, the industry will see that roadmap. That will be the moment to judge the true character of this nine-year veteran exchange—not by what it says, but by whether it can actually open the promised exit channel.

This article is compiled from publicly available information. The BitMart wind-down process is ongoing, and facts should be verified against official announcements and authoritative media reports. Any one-sided allegations mentioned herein are clearly marked.