BitMart to Wind Down Exchange, With CEO Saying He Was Not Consulted

BitMart has begun an orderly wind-down of its exchange, the company said in a notice published late Saturday, three days after BitMEX announced it would close permanently on September 23. BitMart cited “a careful evaluation of the Company's operating conditions, market environment, and future strategic direction” without elaborating further.

New user registrations and deposits began winding down on July 26 at 01:30 UTC, alongside futures accounts moving to reduce-only mode and spot trading ceasing to accept new orders. All spot, futures and other trading services will stop entirely at 01:00 UTC on August 26, with any remaining open futures positions settled by the platform at that point. BitMart Earn, staking, lending and Launchpad products will be discontinued in phases. The exchange plans to officially cease platform operations at 15:59 UTC on January 31, 2027, after which users will retain login access for a period to view records and submit withdrawal requests. Withdrawals remain available now, and BitMart is recommending users close positions and submit withdrawal requests before the August 26 trading cutoff.

BMX, BitMart's token, fell nearly 60% within 24 hours of the announcement, trading near $0.066 on Sunday, according to CoinGecko data cited by The Block . The shutdown reverses messaging from just weeks earlier: BitMart's first-half report touted roughly 256% growth in assets under management in its asset-management business, and global CEO Nenter “Nathan” Chow outlined plans to expand prediction markets, tokenized assets and the exchange's regulatory footprint, saying “BitMart is eight years old this year. We intend to be here for the next eight.” The company had also secured an Australian Financial Services Licence in June and said it served more than 13 million users across over 180 countries.

Chow said on X that BitMart told him on July 24 his employment was being terminated, and that he had played no role in the wind-down decision, learning of it only when it became public. He said he had not been given a confirmed departure date and would not comment further, adding that his concern was for BitMart's users and staff. BitMart had not publicly addressed his statement as of publication. Chow joined BitMart from Animoca Ventures and was named global CEO in April 2025 when founder Sheldon Xia moved to group president.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao reacted to the news on X, calling it “tough times (again)” and describing the process as an apparently orderly wind-down. Zhao separately addressed the wave of exchange closures by saying that acquiring smaller centralized exchanges is more complicated than buying other kinds of businesses, citing the risk that legacy backdoors or security flaws left behind by a previous team could enable a hack after an acquisition closes. He said such deals remain possible but require greater caution, a comment that reads as a response to both BitMEX's closure and BitMart's, rather than a specific deal under discussion.

BitMart previously suffered a $150 million hot-wallet hack in December 2021, and had disputed more recent user complaints about withdrawal issues, saying in a May statement that its risk system had frozen a group of accounts it accused of farming trading subsidies rather than restricting legitimate withdrawals. No comprehensive proof-of-reserves report had been published as of the wind-down announcement.