CoinEx Is Shutting Down: The Deadline to Withdraw Your Balance

Status October 28, 2026: Spot trading on CoinEx ended on September 29 at 02:00 UTC. Since then the exchange has been liquidating every balance not held in USDT in batches: coins that trade on other exchanges are sold and the proceeds credited as USDT to the spot account; coins without such a market are delisted, and CoinEx no longer takes on custody or redemption for them. What can still be withdrawn is therefore mainly USDT, until December 22, 2026 at 02:00 UTC. What the forced conversion means for you is covered in our article on the conversion of non-USDT balances. The figures below are from September 15 and show the exchange before trading ended.

Crypto exchange CoinEx is closing down. Anyone still holding a balance there has to withdraw it by December 22, 2026; after that the withdrawal channel shuts. The wind-down began on September 15, and the key interim date was September 29: spot trading ended that day, and since then the exchange has been liquidating every balance not held in USDT.

On the day of the first wind-down stage we measured what is still technically possible on the exchange. The headline finding: of 992 listed currencies, 37 could not be withdrawn at the time of measurement, deposits had already been switched off for 465, and there was no euro trading pair anywhere on the exchange. This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io on September 15, 2026.

CoinEx is shutting down: the deadlines that apply from September 15

CoinEx has announced the closure as an orderly wind-down and attributes it to the prolonged market downturn, to falling trading volume and to supervisory and compliance costs the company describes as no longer sustainable. The exchange had been on the market for nine years. The wind-down runs in four stages, and each stage takes an option away from you:

• September 15, 2026: no new registrations, no referral rewards, and futures trading moves into reduce only mode. That means you can shrink or close existing positions but can no longer open new ones.
• September 22, 2026: all services outside the spot market end. The exchange settles open futures positions at the index price and repays savings and staking products.
• September 29, 2026, 02:00 UTC: spot trading ends and open orders are cancelled. Since then you can no longer swap a balance into another currency yourself; whatever is not held in USDT, the exchange liquidates in batches. It says it buys back its in-house token CET at 0.005 USDT per unit.
• December 22, 2026, 02:00 UTC: the withdrawal channel closes and operations end.

Between September 29 and December 22 the platform is therefore a pure withdrawal counter for just under three months. What can be withdrawn in that period is essentially whatever is left after the liquidation, which for most holdings means USDT. The exchange publishes its notices in its public announcements section; CryptoBriefing and the Asian industry service PANews, among others, reported on the wind-down independently of one another.

Why an orderly wind-down is different from an insolvency

An orderly wind-down is a process in which a company ends its operations by its own decision and returns customer holdings according to plan. That sets it apart from an insolvency, where an administrator takes control and payouts stop immediately. CoinEx states that it holds a reserve ratio above 100 percent and can pay out all customer holdings in full. That is a company statement, not an externally audited fact. How to handle such a statement is covered further down.

CoinEx and European users: why the July exit from the EEA makes the situation worse

For investors in Germany this is not fresh news but the second half of an old story. CoinEx already left the European Economic Area on July 1, 2026, and has listed the EU as an excluded region ever since. The exchange holds no authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under the EU regulation MiCA, and without that permission it has not been allowed to serve EU customers since the transition period ended. Germany's BaFin has granted most of these authorisations across the entire Union to date and has visibly moved against providers operating without a licence.

In practice that means this: if you are a German user still holding a residual balance at CoinEx, it dates from before July, and you have already been asked once to act. Residual holdings of exactly that kind tend to be left lying around, because they are small and the effort looks larger than the amount. This time that is an expensive misjudgement, for two reasons, both backed by figures below: the withdrawal fee eats a double-digit percentage of small holdings, and the exchange has announced a monthly custody fee for USDT that is not collected.

If you are reorganising your holdings anyway, it is worth looking at exchanges with a European licence, because with them this particular risk disappears: a provider with MiCA authorisation does not have to clear out of the European market overnight. We have described the general order of steps during a closure in a separate piece that explains what you need to do before a deadline expires.

Our own measurement: how many coins could be withdrawn from CoinEx on September 15

Whether a balance can be moved out is decided not by the date in the calendar but by a switch in the exchange software. CoinEx publishes that state through an open interface that can be queried without an account. We called it three times on September 15, 2026, at 03:50, 03:51 and 03:54 UTC, and evaluated the full response each time.

We checked 992 currencies with 1,011 currency-network combinations between them, plus 851 spot markets and 221 futures markets. The method is plain: for each currency and each network, the interface states whether deposits and withdrawals are enabled, what minimum amount applies and what fee is charged. We counted those fields and set them in relation to one another.

The three measurement windows returned identical values, which suggests a configured state rather than a brief outage:

• 37 of 992 currencies could not be withdrawn, which is 3.7 percent.
• 465 of 992 currencies no longer accepted deposits. Just under half of the inflow is therefore already closed.
• At network level, 38 of 1,011 combinations were blocked for withdrawals.
• 8 spot markets already carried a stored delisting date.

The number of blocked withdrawals is lower than you would expect during a wind-down. That is the good news in this measurement. The bad news is in the next section, because there it is about the selection rather than the quantity.

37 blocked coins: which balances could not leave the exchange on the day of measurement

Among the 37 currencies without withdrawals are several that do turn up in European portfolios. In full, and in the exchange's own spelling, they were: ARRR, AVAIL, BABY, CELO, CRO, DAG, DERO, DYDX, EGLD, ETC, ETHW, EURR, GLMR, HFUN, HYPE, ICX, KAT, LYX, MANTRA, MODE, MOVR, NEOX, OCTA, ONE, ONG, ONT, PI, PUMPBTC, PURR, REEF, SAL, USDR, VENOM, WING, XNO, XRD and ZIL.

Three entries stand out. ETC is Ethereum Classic, one of the older large currencies. CRO belongs to the ecosystem of a major competing exchange. EURR is a euro-denominated stablecoin, which is precisely the entry a European user might need as an exit into their own currency. The exchange does not communicate through the interface why these blocks are in place, and we claim no reason for them. Blocks of this kind can have technical causes, such as maintenance on the network concerned.

For holdings on this list the finding had a hard consequence: while the withdrawal switch stayed shut, the only route ran through the spot market, and that ended on September 29. Since then the exchange's liquidation decides: a coin that trades on other exchanges is sold and credited as USDT, a coin without such a market is delisted. So check your account now to see what has become of your holding, and withdraw the USDT before December 22.

Withdrawal fees by chain: why USDT on TRC20 costs almost a thousand times more

The second finding of the measurement is the most expensive one, and it affects practically anyone holding a balance in stablecoins. A withdrawal at CoinEx costs a fixed fee, and that fee depends solely on which network you withdraw through. The same USDT, the same amount, the same moment, nine possible routes at nine very different prices. This is how they looked on the day of measurement:

• Plasma: 0.000043 USDT
• CSC: 0.0016 USDT
• Polkadot Asset Hub: 0.0036 USDT
• BNB Smart Chain: 0.0079 USDT
• Avalanche C-Chain: 0.021 USDT
• Ethereum (ERC20): 0.071 USDT
• TON: 0.22 USDT
• Solana: 0.48 USDT
• Tron (TRC20): 7.50 USDT

Between the cheapest and the most expensive chain, Plasma against Tron, sits a factor of 174,000, and even between the two most widely used routes, BNB Smart Chain and Tron, the factor is 949. Tron is the standard recommendation for USDT transfers in many guides, because the chain was long considered cheap. At this exchange, on this day, it is by some distance the most expensive way out.

The effect turns brutal as soon as the residual holding is small. On a balance of 20 USDT, a withdrawal via Tron costs 7.50 USDT, which is 37.5 percent. Via BNB Smart Chain it would be 0.04 percent. A fee exceeding the minimum amount is no isolated case at CoinEx: in 78 of the 1,011 currency-network combinations, the withdrawal fee came to at least half of the respective minimum withdrawal amount. For Tron USDT the minimum amount was 1 USDT and the fee 7.50 USDT.

What this means for Bitcoin and Ethereum

For Bitcoin there was only one withdrawal route, the Bitcoin network itself, with a fee of 0.0001 BTC and a minimum amount of 0.001 BTC. At the measured price of around 77,742 USDT per Bitcoin, the fee works out at roughly 7.80 USDT and therefore a tenth of the smallest possible withdrawal amount. Ether cost 0.000011 ETH on a minimum amount of 0.005 ETH, a ratio of around 0.2 percent. The difference between the two is no coincidence and follows the usual transaction costs of each chain.

The practical consequence for you: since trading ended, your residual balance is usually in USDT anyway; check every chain on offer individually when you withdraw. Make sure the destination address supports the same chain. A withdrawal to an address on the wrong network is the most common way to lose a balance for good; a hardware wallet with a clear network display largely takes that mistake off your hands.

No euro pair on CoinEx: how to get out of the exchange without a fiat exit

Among the exchange's 851 spot markets there was not a single euro pair on the day of measurement. Trading ran against USDT in 645 markets, against Bitcoin in 134 and against USDC in 72. A direct route from your CoinEx account to your bank account therefore does not exist, and none will appear before December 22 either.

The exit consequently runs through two steps. First you withdraw your balance as crypto assets, either to your own wallet or to an account with a provider authorised in the EU. Only there do you swap into euros and cash out. Anyone planning the second step anyway should set up the destination account before withdrawing, so that no waiting period opens up between payout and sale in which the price runs against you. We have worked through the trading costs elsewhere to show that a missing euro order book is more than an inconvenience.

The CET buyback at 0.005 USDT: what the price said on the day of measurement

According to CoinEx, the exchange has been buying back its own token CET from user accounts at 0.005 USDT per unit since September 29. A buyback at a fixed price acts like a floor that the market orients itself around. That is exactly what the measurement showed: CET traded in all three windows at 0.005 and 0.005001 USDT respectively, so practically exactly at the announced buyback price.

The remaining daily figures show how the market found its way there. It opened at 0.004826 USDT, fell to a low of 0.0045 and rose to a high of 0.005043. Trading volume over the past 24 hours came to around 75.5 million CET, with the sell side at about 52.3 million clearly above the buy side at around 2.5 million.

For CET holders the calculation was therefore plain: selling on the market before September 29 brought roughly the same price as the buyback, but cost the trading fee. Since trading ended, only the buyback remains. Its value sits in the account as USDT and has to be withdrawn by December 22 like any other balance.

A custody fee of 5 percent a month: what happens to USDT you do not withdraw

For the case that a balance is still sitting in the account on December 22, CoinEx has announced an arrangement that is unusual and that you should know about. USDT not withdrawn by the cut-off date is to be transferred into separate custody. For this the company names a monthly custody fee amounting to 5 percent of the original holding. According to the notice, claims to such a holding can be filed by email with support until August 22, 2028.

Work that through, because the basis of assessment makes the difference. A fee of 5 percent on the original amount is not a proportional shrinkage that approaches zero asymptotically, but a constant deduction. On 500 USDT that would be 25 USDT a month. After twenty months the holding would be used up on paper. A balance you simply leave alone is therefore gone after just under two years, without anyone having taken it from you.

This construction is no isolated case in wind-downs; we have described it in earlier cases and shown what happens to residual balances after an exchange closes. What is new is the level. So set yourself a reminder for the start of December in case you have to postpone the withdrawal for any reason.

Reserves above 100 percent: what CoinEx commits to and what follows from it

CoinEx states that it holds a reserve ratio of more than 100 percent, so that all customer holdings can be paid out in full. That figure comes from the company itself. We can neither confirm nor refute it, and we expressly imply nothing else about the company.

As an investor you need the distinction all the same. A reserve ratio describes a state at a point in time, not a promise for the coming three months. Nor does it replace deposit insurance: there is no statutory protection for crypto assets on an exchange of the kind you know from bank deposits. The sober way to handle this is to take the order of events seriously. As long as the withdrawal channel is open, moving your money out is a decision you make. Once it is no longer open, you no longer make it.

Withdrawing your balance: which steps count before December 22

The order follows from the dates. The spot market has been closed since September 29; only the withdrawal channel remains open until December 22. Waiting gains you nothing: on the last day there is no room left if a transfer gets stuck.

1. Review your holdings. Check in your account which balances are still in their original currency and which the exchange has already converted into USDT. For delisted coins, CoinEx says it no longer provides custody.
2. Check the settlements. The exchange settled open futures positions at the index price on September 22 and repaid savings and staking products. Make sure the credits are complete in your spot account.
3. Withdraw once, not several times. Every withdrawal costs a fixed fee. So withdraw your USDT in a single transfer where possible rather than in many small amounts.
4. Choose the chain deliberately. When withdrawing, compare the networks on offer and take the one with the lowest fee that your destination address also supports.
5. Test with a small amount. Send a small sum to the destination address first and check it arrives before you transfer the rest.
6. Secure your records. Download your transaction history before December 22. Once the exchange is switched off you cannot reach this data any more, and the tax office will ask for it later.

Tax on withdrawal: when moving to your own wallet counts

A pure transfer from the exchange to your own wallet is not a disposal in Germany and does not by itself trigger any tax. Nor does it interrupt the one-year holding period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, because the beneficial owner does not change in the process.

The swaps this wind-down forces are a different matter. If the exchange liquidates a coin and credits you USDT, you dispose of it for tax purposes, even though you did not trigger the sale yourself. If the purchase was less than a year ago, the gain counts as a private disposal transaction. The same applies to the CET buyback. That is no reason to postpone the withdrawal, but it is a reason to secure your acquisition data while the history can still be retrieved. A tax and portfolio tool reads such statements in and classifies the transactions before the data source disappears.

Limits of this measurement: what three queries do not show

The survey describes a state on the morning of September 15, 2026 and nothing beyond that. It does not say how the blocks will develop by December; the number of currencies that cannot be withdrawn may rise or fall. Nor does it say anything about why an individual currency is blocked, because the interface gives no reason for it.

We were also unable to check whether withdrawals run as promptly in practice as their enabled status suggests. That would require an account on the exchange, and we do not have one. The fees named are the fixed amounts published by the exchange; whether further costs arise in an individual case was beyond our measurement. The wind-down dates come from the company's announcement and from reporting on it, among others at CryptoBriefing, and therefore not from our measurement.

Withdrawing your CoinEx balance: what to take away

1. Check now what has become of your holding. Since September 29, CoinEx has been liquidating everything not held in USDT; on the day of measurement 37 of 992 currencies could not be withdrawn, among them ETC, CRO and the euro stablecoin EURR. Withdraw the USDT before December 22. If you are changing exchange anyway, start with the trading venues authorised in the EU, so the same retreat does not happen to you a second time.
2. Choose the chain by the fee, not by habit. USDT via Tron cost 7.50 USDT, via BNB Smart Chain 0.0079 USDT. On small residual holdings that choice decides whether anything arrives at all. The withdrawal should target an address you control yourself; we have compared which hardware wallets are suited to it.
3. Secure the history before December 22. After the shutdown it is gone, and the forced swaps are relevant for tax. Download the statements and read them into a tax tool while you can still reach them.

(Measurement: September 15, 2026; dates and wind-down: as of October 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)