BitMart's 'orderly' shutdown: unpaid staff, frozen funds, and a reserves proof still unpublished

BitMart said on July 26 that it would stop taking new deposits, sign-ups and orders that day at 01:30 UTC, and it has described what follows as an "orderly" shutdown ^[1][22]. Weeks later, its founder says he intends to report his own employees' unpaid-wage claims to law enforcement, and the proof of reserves the exchange promised on May 23 still has not appeared ^[12][10][11].

The mechanics are fixed. Spot and futures trading stop on August 26, 2026 at 01:00 UTC ^[3]. Users have been told to finish verification and withdraw by 05:00 UTC that day, with the caveat that some requests may attract additional compliance checks ^[9]. Operations formally end on January 31, 2027 at 15:59 UTC, after which customers get limited account access ^[4]. That leaves 158 days between the last trade and the last day ^[21], and, per the Bitcoin Foundation's July 27 breakdown, no disclosed time frame for withdrawals once operations cease and no bankruptcy filing ^[16].

The gap between the language and the ledger is where counterparties live. On May 23, BitMart attributed withdrawal problems to a volume-farming scheme across 239 connected accounts and said it would publish proof of reserves "at an appropriate time" ^[10]. That was 86 days before the August 17 post from an account operating under the name BitMart_zh, which tagged co-founder Sheldon and the official exchange account and claimed users still could not retrieve funds while many employees had not received their final month's pay ^[23][7]. On August 8, Xia said the company had not run away, told users to be careful about screenshots and leaks from current and former employees, and said the core team was working through an asset inventory and system maintenance ^[5]. He also denied any misappropriation of client funds ^[6][8]. Cryptobriefing reports he now plans police involvement and data forensics ^[12], which the publication reads as a review of internal communications, access logs and possibly transaction records ^[20], and which it calls unusual, since unpaid wages in most wind-downs are a liability a company acknowledges and negotiates ^[13].

Third parties have been less rhetorical. Whale Alert reported on August 10 that a co-founder of OpenGradient said his market-making team could not withdraw from BitMart and questioned whether the exchange was solvent; BitMart maintains withdrawals are still being processed ^[14][8]. A Hungarian firm has lodged a police complaint over roughly $80,000 in frozen assets, according to Cryptobriefing ^[15]. The same report puts the queue at more than 300 users an hour submitting withdrawal requests, which works out to more than 7,200 a day if that rate holds ^[24][25].

The comparison rivals are drawing is deliberate. MEXC announced a Hacken proof-of-reserves audit on August 14 showing reserve ratios above 100% across main assets and 288% for Bitcoin, and framed the disclosure against a continuing trend of exchange consolidation in 2026 ^[17]. BitMart carries history into this: the December 2021 hot wallet breach cost an estimated $150 million to $196 million, and Xia's pledge to compensate users helped the platform survive ^[18]. A venue founded in 2017, live since 2018, built on altcoin listings that larger platforms would not touch, is precisely the tier where the adjective and the audit part company ^[19][2].

Three things to watch. Whether any proof of reserves is published before the 05:00 UTC August 26 withdrawal cut-off ^[9][11]. Whether BitMart attaches a date to withdrawals in the 158-day window between the trading halt and formal closure ^[16][21]. And whether the Hungarian complaint or the founder's own police referral produces a filing that moves the asset inventory onto a record someone other than BitMart controls ^[15][12].