Bitcoin Forum

Thinking about leaving those hard-earned BTCitcoins of yours in an exchange wallet as way of;

- Storing or Holding them in there?
- Staking and Lending them out through the exchange?

Well, think again. According to Cryptowisser Exchange Graveyard (https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchange-graveyard/), in this year alone 75 cryptocurrency exchanges have been shutdown and the year is yet to end. Who knows how many more will shut down. As of today, that's One exchange getting closed down every 3.75 Days on average.

Cointeleghaph cites (https://cointelegraph.com/news/75-crypto-exchanges-have-closed-down-so-far-in-2020) that;

• Five of the exchanges were labelled as scams while four including Altsbit, and Nerae, were flagged as being hacked.
• In total 31 were shut down voluntarily while 34 just disappeared with no explanation
• Dutch exchange NLexch, and Chilean Chilebit were the only two flagged as being shut down by their respective governments in 2020

The Major reasons for the shut-downs have been blamed on;
1. Scams
2. The growing regulatory pressure, so other exchanges just decided to shut down voluntarily
3. Exchange hacks
4. The resurrection of decentralized exchanges this year due to the DeFi hype

In the light of this, I would like to echo that it's everyone's responsibility to make sure you never use an exchange as a wallet for holding their bitcoins or other coins. Chances are high that you will wake up tomorrow and the custodian of your funds is no longer operating. It doesn't matter how big or popular the exchange is. Anything can happen.

Use Noncustodial or better still, Hardware wallets to hold your funds

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Source links for those who would love to read further:
- https://cointelegraph.com/news/75-crypto-exchanges-have-closed-down-so-far-in-2020
- https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchange-graveyard/

I think the main reason for shutting down these exchanges is decentralized finance, of course, there are some exchanges whose purpose was just to scam, although whatever it may be an attempt to save the traditional banks.


Honestly, this has happened to me. Just a few days ago, when the Kucoin exchange was hacked, I had some funds that I wanted to withdraw, But then I thought that even if I have to trade here tomorrow, I will withdraw it tomorrow. And so far, withdraw option is suspended by kucoin team. my fund is stuck now.

And considering that Kucoin is already big and known exchange, how much more risk when it comes to those small crypto exchanges? If you will leave some funds for short period, just make sure that the exchange has insurance at least, like in BNB and coinbase. Otherwise, secure your funds in your own wallets. It will not hurt if you know for sure that your funds are in your possession, at least you can sleep at night without worrying the next day that your funds may be on the hands of hackers.

This is why you don't blindly trust an exchange no matter how good the promotions are or no matter if it is promoted by some 'influencer'. Also, you don't leave substantial amounts in your exchange account, even just for a day, if you intend to continue on trading. Better to pay those small fees for transfer rather than regret it later since you have been hacked for the whole amount of your bank roll.

With the way things are going currently, even the reputable exchanges are getting closed here and there. Point still stands years after it was made: never leave your money ever on any exchange.

Well, this should be expected. With how "small" crypto market compared to stocks and etc, there is no way all of those exchanges will get enough volume to survive. Not to mention some are built with the intention to exit scam. If there's no new features that you need, better stick with exchanges that are considered "safe to use" in most cases. Don't try new exchange because you want to cash out some shitcoins.

It is not a big problem that some crypto exchange has stopped working - and even that number is 10 times higher - but the problem is that in some cases the owners disappear with user funds, and investigations of such crimes are very often not conducted in some countries.

This is where the intersection between decentralization and regulation comes in, as most of us are against governments interfering in our crypto anonymity, and on the other hand we want protection in the event of a hack crypto exchange or if the owner suddenly dies and takes all private keys with him to the grave. Therefore, it is important to tighten the permissions for such services - because otherwise many people will lose confidence in investing in crypto - which of course does not mean that they should use crypto exchange for long-term storage, but we all know that the vast majority have just such habits.

I think we should always remind ourselves what happened to Mt.Gox or Quadriga, and many other crypto exchanges that have marked the destinies of many people in the past decade.

Adding up:

5. There are lots of exchange or this industry is already a saturated one.
So it isnt a surprise why majority of them just disappear without any explanation and half do voluntarily closed their doors.

They wont really get sufficient liquidity for them to continue and basing off numbers then majority of us would only just recommend nor prefer on top exchangers
which had been commonly suggested.In result, those new exchange wont really get users and its just dumb to continue into that manner.

This is a staggering number, and this is what we know about it. There may be some smaller exchanges which was known to very less people and thousand also be shut. Some of the exchanges may be shut because of the government or the country polices as they keep changing and making it more cumbersome for this exchange to operate. Some of them may not have a good volume to operate etc.

It’s no longer something new, we talk about this all the time. Over the years we have seen lots of exchanges being hacked, and not just hacks lots of other things has been happening. Anyone that is storing their coins on an exchange by now is just doing so on purpose and should be ready to bear the consequences when it happens.

There are lots of offline/hardware/personal wallets that one can make use of to store their coins, and exchanges are no option, you should only make use of exchanges whenever you feel like trading and nothing more. I have heard of exchanges that were shutdown by governments for one purpose or the other, you can just wake up and that’s how you will lose your money for no reason.

I wonder what countries those 34 exchanges were operating out of.  Any idea?

And OP, you're damn right about not using an exchange as your wallet.  That's absolutely one of the first things any newbie to crypto should learn.  I remember when I was acquiring my first bitcoin years ago, it wasn't clear to me that I shouldn't have kept coins on an exchange or in an online wallet--but I learned those things as I kept reading threads on bitcointalk.

I'm damned surprised that Yobit is still in business, and I'm wondering how long they're going to last.

Here you go. Looks like there is a lot of exchange death in Netherlands, Hong Kong...

Edit:
(Oops, wrong list. These are the 31 that closed down voluntarily. I will try compiling the other 34 you requested tomorrow)

01. DFlow - Estonia
02. VirWox - Australia
03. HBUS - USA
04. Cobinhood - Cayman Islands
05. Chainrift - USA
06. Fcoin Exchange - China
07. Bitbox - Singapore
08. Trade Satoshi - UK
09. EasyRabbit - Cyprus (Rebranded to Easybit)
10. Sparkdex  - Hong Kong
11. Koineks - Turkey
12. Fisco - Japan (Merged with Zaif)
13. Bitlish - UK
14. Stellar DEX  -Unknown
15. GuldenTrader - Netherlands
16. OmniTrade -Brazil
17. BHEX - Malta (Rebranded to HBTC)
18. DEx.top - Unknown
19. Hodly - USA
20. OpenLedger DEX - Denmark
21. Bitqist - Netherlands
22. BTCEXA - Australia
23. Token.Store - Unknown
24. Nocks - Netherlands
25. Blockonix - Malta
26. ANXPRO - Hong Kong
27. Orderbook.io - Singapore
28. Instant Bitex - UK
29. Bitunio - UK
30. BOA Exchange - Romania (acquired by Bitcoin.com)
31. The PIT - Netherlands (Rebranded as Blockchain Exchange)

This number is indeed surprisingly high. The breakdown is as follows:

• 5 - Scams
• 4 - Hacked
• 31 - Voluntarily shut down
• 34 - MIA; disappearing with no explanation
• 2 - Shut down by governments

*Note that the total is actually 76. The list provided by cryptowisser.com is also 76.

However, I am more interested in the overall implication of this. What does this suggest? We cannot certainly conclude that it is hard to maintain a crypto exchange because governments are inimical to their existence or operation. Out of the 76 closed exchanges, only 2 were shut down by governments.

Moreover, we cannot also claim that online threats such as hacks and other attacks played a central role because only 4 of the 76 which fell down were caused by hacks.

While I agree with the article that the rise of DeFi in 2020 could have played a major role, I disagree that the rise of DEXs in 2020 is also one macro trend which could have caused it. Which DEX in particular came and aggressively competed in the market in 2020? Was there even a huge wave of DEXs in 2020? As a matter of fact, DEXs are also included in this list.

My hunch is that many of these exchanges were part of the sudden influx of exchanges in 2016-2018, the time when thousands and thousands of tokens flocked the crypto market. Now, with so many altcoins dead and trading volumes of those which remained are terribly falling down, profits are also decreasing, definitely touching rock bottom to a lot.

Or perhaps the crypto market is too small to accommodate all of them, considering that the largest pieces of the pie are only divided among few exchange monopolies.

In other words, it must have something to do with profit, at least to many of them, which is not mentioned in the article. Operating and maintaining a crypto exchange might not be a profitable undertaking anymore that's why they are forced to voluntarily shut down. This must also explain the very high count of abandoned exchanges, those MIA. They wouldn't have been abandoned in the first place had they been providing juicy income to the owners.

Personally, I am not at all surprised that this crypto exchange is still alive if we take into account that it is a company that is primarily related to Russia. You may not know how the system works there, but everything there is under strict control and no one operates without the approval of their various services that make sure everyone plays by their rules. So I would conclude that they are a team player with permission from the top to do what they know best.

Exchange in question also has a pretty good user base thanks to the advertising that happened on this forum, and through the acquisition of a forum that shill them in every possible ways.

For 80% of these exchanges, I have never heard of. I guess it's not a problem that there won't be any more. If most had a business as well Tradesatoshi or Cobinhood this is positive news.

is there an estimate of how much money they embezzled? I believe that there are certainly those who have money locked there.

Not only just Yobit, the other Unpopular scam exchanges that are still operating are HitBTC and Livecoin. I have never used Livecoin but I have ever used HitBTC and Yobit before totally abandoning them. One thing I noted about both exchanges is their abnormally high withdrawal and trading fees as compared to other exchanges. So I guess they survive through those abnormal fees, and I am pretty sure their listing fees could be ridiculously high too. That, and selectively scamming people keeps them a float

The definition of the platforms needs a lot of scrutinies because many of the platforms that are added are considered a scam or have very little liquidity.
Therefore, if we take into account the platforms that can be trusted, the number will decrease to a few platforms, which we can consider as reliable.
As for keeping your money on these platforms, it is a waste of time.

The platforms are used to exchange bitcoin (from fiat or other cryptos) not holding it.

The lucky few like you are me are informed about which platforms not to use but out there, we have newbies who fall prey to the scam platforms that have little liquidity, so I think it would make sense having them listed too.

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@The Pharmacist, Here is the list of 34 exchanges that disappeared with no explanation. South Korea and Hong Kong seem to be leading the pack.

01. Unichange - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
02. Crypto Dao - UK
03. BTCbear - Estonia
04. 3XBIT - Brazil
05. CredoEx - USA
06. Purcow - Hong Kong
07. CoolCoin - Australia
08. ZG.top - Mongolia
09. Coinrate - UK
10. ICOCryptex - Netherlands
11. LEOxChange - UAE
12. IDAX - Mongolia
13. TOPBTC - Australia
14. ChaoEX - Hong Kong
15. CoinMex - Belize
16. 55 Global Markets - USA
17. CoinZest - South Korea
18. CryptoDerivatives - Unknown
19. Coinfinit - South Korea
20. Nexybit - South Korea
21. South Korea - Unknown
22. BitBegin - Nigeria
23. TiDeal - Hong Kong
24. LBank - Hong Kong
25. Coinrail - South Korea
26. BitHash - Seychelles
27. QBTC - Cayman Islands
28. Efin.cx - Hong Kong
29. Bitrush - Netherlands
30. FUBT - Hong Kong
31. TokenJar - Unknown
32. CashFinex - Estonia
33. Krypto Connection - UK
34. Coinchangex - Morocco

Always suspected so but honestly didn't know it was that bad. Thought exchanges gave up in 2018 already, even DEXes stopped putting their spins out (Except all these ABV-swap platforms mushrooming up).

Just saw that on ETH alone also there's a rugpull Defi every 8/9 minutes.

And we wonder why crypto's got such a bad reputation. Outside of Bitcoin, probably deserved.

to be fair, the vast majority of those are no-name exchanges with very little volume---not exactly significant. there were 5 names that i recognized: HBUS, the pit, virwox, cobinhood, and IDAX.

virwox, cobinhood, and IDAX are no surprise. virwox got hacked many years ago and never recovered. i'm surprised they were still around at all. HBUS (huobi's USA platform) never gained traction.

i was surprised to see the pit (blockchain.com's new exchange) listed, then i realized it was just rebranded to blockchain.com exchange. since re-brandings are included on the list, 75 might be an exaggeration.

Is there any stats on how many users were affected or how much money was lost with those exchanges that disappeared without warning?
I suppose the other exchanges allawed their customers to withdraw their coins before shutting down for good!
I'm not surprised by those numbers since dozens of new exchanges keep popping up out of nowhere and competing with bigger/older exchanges isn't that easy.

And yet there are still many developers that's thinking that they can make it big in the exchange industry, some of these exchanges are launching a crowdfunding, people should not support this, because there  are exchanges right now stable exchanges that did not launch a crowdfunding compared to those who launch one, we are ok with big exchanges now, if a new one is coming they should prove themselves first.

If something like this occurred and ask for funds to the people before they can officially lunch then we shouldn't support any of them since for sure it will end up something like scamming since for sure they will not last long and those claims to become big will not gonna happen.

That's why we need to go on old or if there's new we should check the reliability and transparency.

I don't know if I should be embarassed of myself but I can name right off the top of my head 4/5 exchanges NOT in that list that I know failed (I should say scam since they just died quiet deaths) but yeah, insignificant volumes probably is the precise reason they died anyway. I didn't know about HBUS but I actually signed up on 3 different Huobi platforms (client requirement), and at least one died, they had to reintegreate into Huobi global for some of them I believe.

Rebrands are mostly on the part of Exchanges that voluntarily shutdown or made an announcement to customers before shutting down, and they are about 4 of them, so I think the number is fair enough given that the vast majority are them that disappeared without a warning or exit scammed.

Those stats are hard to collect, so I don't think we have any. Because, most of the scam exchanges  fake volume and just disappear without a trace. It's only a few people who come out to make scam accusations or reviews while a majority of them just go silent.

When someone do tends to build and exchange platform then its just really not appealing for having some ICO's or some sort because if we do look back on how those
known and popular exchange now where they do start up without needing those which basically means that they are financially capable which is really a strong indication
that this might be a serious one that someone should looked for but for those who do ask out for some investment or funding then its better to ignore and yet
those sweet promises and assurances came out from their mouth would really just vanished into thin air when those money accumulated had been scammed.

Out for those exchange been mentioned, i havent even known majority of them and due to lack of liquidity then its no surprise that they would just disappear without saying anything.

Probably those exchanges that has been shutting down are those exchanges that has not yet established or had been start so low that it was not able to compensate the needed things in the operation.

I think users that has Bitcoin will not going to trust exchanges that has no good feedback or review or exchanges that are not so good like those establish cryptoexchges. Some of the cryptoexchages are from those ICO projects that has only low funds that could help them somehow if they got a good support from its community.

They cannot keep up with the competition or lacks the proper marketing to attract more traders, exchanges are multi-million dollar business and it's also the favorite target of hackers and scammers and once a small exchange is hacked, it's the end of the line for them if a start up exchange cannot attract in its first five months I don't think they can continue their operations.

HotBit turned into scam? It was surprising news for me. I thought they are one of the trusted exchange site. Why this sites "Just Disappeared"? They might be scam or they turned into scam while closing their site.
Soon sites like P2PB2B will be in this list under scam or just disappear lol

I got surprised too seeing that they stated that hotbit is a scam. they've made some accusations about hotbit's govt registrations. I have been using hotbit for over 2 years (not regularly but just to sell coins when needed) and I've never had any problem. they say some people complained about their widhdraw problems.
this is true and I completely agree that we should never 100% trust any exchange and don't use it as a wallet to store our coins/tokens for long term. exchanges are good only for buying selling and then cashing out.

this would be my conclusion also.
there are some people who think just because something is profitable they can also make profit if they enter that scene, but since they have no understanding of the business aspects of it, have no experience in running a successful business, are too lazy to work on it and improve it,... they simply fail. we even saw some discussion on bitcointalk with someone who was trying to build an exchange and had no understanding of the business aspects!

we see the same thing in different fields too. for example a couple of years ago there was "dice site fever" and within a couple of months we saw dozens of new dice sites be created and 99% of them failed and died.

there is also another problem in the exchange business which is people stick to the big exchanges even if they are the shittiest and shadiest services. for now the Binance exchange has taken over the altcoin market and practically controls it so there is no room for an alternative which is another reason why any new poorly designed exchange fails.

I think only time has shown a viable exchange against the user with its various impressions leaving the best. I don't know which exchanges closed, but but I'm sure most of them started out during the first hype of new projects in 2017. And in essence even though in the end there will be 10 crypto exchanges left in the world, trading will still go on and volume will still go with the flow.

Those on the list are those already operating but there there could be more there are exchanges that launch an ICO to fund their platform and they got millions but now they run away with investor's money, some of these are Xera, Adab and many more to mention, investors should never invest on projects that are related to exchanges they will just scam you.

Way back during the time when the ICO trend was at its peak, investors were pouring in billions of money to so many kinds of crypto projects. Crypto projects back then were so diverse that they seem to cover almost all aspects of our daily lives. Of course, we all know most of them died. Even those which were able to gather tens of millions.

I'm not sure if my memory still serves me right but I used to observe that a number of crypto projects suddenly shifted to creating exchanges when in fact they started off with a different niche. They suddenly released a product not in line with their original objective and roadmap. I guess they are already included in the list of dead crypto exchanges.

There used to be a time when so many ICO are based on exchanges, because of the huge success of Binance but unfortunately these ICO based exchanges cannot keep up with their platform and they choose to scam their investors, by one these exchanges run away with investors money from, so people should stop investing in ICO based exchange, I participated three on them, I will not mentioned because I'm hoping to get my token when they unlock it.

Because it might a part of the competition, crypto exchange is a business that if the owner or the team will poorly manage it will result in a failed business.
In order for them to survive, there should be a good service or good quality as a product that the traders were surely looking for and stay on exchange.  But then if not, they will surely bankrupt and won't survive, this case is different from the fraudulent exchange and scamming cases which are also forcibly closed by the government.

But now, the Defi trend that makes a decentralized exchange have good services offered to avoid problems like CEX that commonly close.  Let see where it goes or those Defi exchange will survive in the long run.

I haven't tend to make out some investment when it comes to exchange platforms that do run out some ICO's and that one saved my ass.

Take a look into those established and known exchangers at the moment which you can tell that their financially capabled on this business without needing any support or funding
when they started up which you can presume out that they aren't similar into those who do ran an ICO.

Market is fierce and getting support or being recognize is the hardest part of all.

I think 75 is not the right amount, I feel it is more than 100 exchanges.  The competition between exchanges is already very tight, those that do not have strong connections and large backup funds will die..

Honestly, I never used any of the exchanges on this list "LOL"..

Maybe we didn't notice those small exchange close down and I also believe that there are more shutting down due to some reasons.

But I don't really care about that thing as long as the binance and okex are still running then everything is fine, and also as we can see it didn't have any effect on Bitcoin so it's a good thing to see this since we can determine which exchange are strong and which are not and luckily we avoid those upcoming exchange scams.

It's the list of exchanges that shut down since the beginning of 2020, That's no small number mate. If you are looking for the overall number of exchanges that have shut down through the years then the number is well way above 75. As we speak 2 more exchanges have been reported to have shutdown from the time I created the OP
This link might be of interest to you https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchange-graveyard

I'm a little bothered by this actually. If the only crypto exchanges running are the ones which are owned by Changpeng Zhao and Jay Hao, just by the sound of these names, I would already be a bit troubled that the Chinese hegemony has already infiltrated cryptocurrency.

I'd rather see the crypto field without monopolies. I'd rather see thousands of relatively smaller crypto exchanges evenly scattered all over the world on more or less equal footing rather than the small ones dying one after another and only a handful giants remain.

I guess it is also much safer this way.

meh, i've been hearing this sorta "china phobia" since 2013 when most of the hash rate migrated there. people used to bitch and moan that the chinese exchanges ran the whole market too. this was years ago.

i don't see any harm done. i think the financial incentives built into bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and the exchange business generally keep us well protected from any sort of nefarious conspiracies. if anything, the ecosystem is becoming more resilient all the time, year after year.


i love small businesses, but one issue we need to consider is liquidity---traders need thick order books to obtain adequately sized positions and to avoid slippage. that's why most of the global exchange volume will always gravitate towards a handful of the largest exchanges. every once in a while those top exchanges get shuffled around but the dynamic never really changes.

Is there any official topic regardind the Cobinhood exit-scam (or it looks like to me since i haven't been able to login/withdrawal all the year) ?

I don't know where you have been but cobinhood shut down a long time ago. There was news allover earlier this year and late last year, Not sure how you missed it
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cobinhood-announces-shutdown-claims-audit-151656225.html
- https://medium.com/@Cobinhood/shutdown-notice-cobinhood-exchange-6a4125e93a03
- https://www.coindesk.com/cobinhood-announces-shutdown-claiming-it-will-audit-user-account
- https://cobinhood.com/#/announcement

Thank you for the answer.
I've been trying to login since March this year and never allowed.
Yes, i've been busy earlier last year. So, is there any way to login and withdrawal my coins or they are gone like with Tradesatoshi and Cryptopia ?

It's very likely they are gone. The only way you can claim/withdraw then is through accessing their website which isn't working right now. I am really sorry that you have been a victim of so many shutdown exchanges, but I would suggest you stop keeping your coins in exchanges. Keep them in a software wallet or hardware wallet and back up your private keys or seed phrases. Only send them to an exchange if you plan to sell them

Thanks for your hints, yes i know i should but they were mostly shitcoins or coins with no many markets but them. My bigger mistake has been to join the crazy run for altcoins (shitcoins better) at the begin of 2018. Worst time to invest in cryptos ever. I'm just trying to recover as much as i can. Good luck for you too.

We all make mistakes at one point and hopefully we learn from those mistakes. Most of the altcoins are scam because they are created to scheme for investors' or traders' more valuable fiat, Bitcoins, ETH etc in exchange for their valueless tokens minted out of a thin air.

Avoid such coins. Stick with the top marketcap coins. Even buying and trading bitcoin can be profitable if you are patient and know when to buy. For example since March 2020 when the Bitcoin price hit ~$4,000, the price is  now up by over 700%

Nothing beats out on getting knowledge due to experience and we do all came into that situation where we do believe into something which isnt really that truly happening into this market.

List would be long when it comes of crypto exchanges being shut down due to those very common reasons. Exit scams, regulation and other issues.

We should always put up into our minds that its better to stick into known platforms rather than risking on dealing or engaging on something which is new and hadnt been trusted yet
because you wouldnt know if one day that the platform you've been using would just simply vanished away.

Expect for the list to continue as we approach those future years.