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Bkex is one of the top cryptocurrency exchange in the Asian region, on the 29th of May, 2023, the exchange made an announcement of suspending all withdrawals from the platform due to an account being involved in money laundering and police investigating the case, they told their users that the investigation would last not more than 4 days, and withdrawal of funds will be opened again for every one, but unfortunately, today makes it 9 days and withdrawal is not yet opened, several of their users are already panicking..

Here is the full announcement..

https://bkex.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19022106904729 (https://bkex.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19022106904729)

The major problem with this whole thing is that, withdrawal is suspended for every user of the exchange for the past 9 days and Counting, but deposit have remained opened for those who probably do not know what is going on with the exchange to continue to deposit funds in...

This is not a scam accusation, since I see they all their social media accounts are very active, their telegram group is still very much active with lots of users allowed to complain, Twitter is still there though the last tweet was 9 days ago..

This is a warning to every crypto holder/trader out there, do not deposit funds to Bkex for now,  simply avoid this exchange for the main time...

If at all they are being truthful about police investigating a money laundering case carried out on their platform, I pray they get it done with soon, and open withdrawals for users to freely withdraw their assets, we don't need another FTX scene again...

I guess this thread would be more appropriate on a Services Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0) board.

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I just realized about this news suspended withdrawals, maybe there will be more panic if the user used this exchange before, with 9 days already passed without any clarity on his twitter what is it possible this exchange will come out in a smooth way?
That is the risk where holding assets on the exchange, will feel bitter when something goes wrong, I hope there will be better developments.

Well, I felt it's more of a reputational issue, which is why I decided to make this post here, this no doubt will greatly or has already affected the reputation of the exchange, as I can see on coinmarketcap that the exchange is dropping in rank.
So, though this does have a relation with the service discussion board, I felt it is a case that has to do with reputation as well, but I will gladly move the thread to the service discussion board if so suggested by other users..

Edit: I decided to move it, thanks very much for the suggestion my friend.

There is something shady: why suspend withdrawals and don't lock deposits?
Also on they webpage there isn't any warning about: so they want people continue to deposits?  ???

This look like an exit scam. Hope i'm wrong....

If they're indeed telling the truth, I lean towards it's likely to get uglier specially after what went down with hotbit where even after investigation was done, they claim the assets were still frozen and they had to look for acquisitions or loans to pay back users. Ofc, this is assuming that hotbit was also telling the truth. If anyone hasn't heard, they claim to be in a similar situation: was investigated > froze their assets.

Open deposits are indeed unnecessary, makes sense that people are questioning their sincerity. Since all the information are coming from bkex, it's pretty understandable that people are on the fence as well.

The good thing is that they put the notice about no withdrawals on the home page, but the lack of suspension of deposits is very confusing.
I sent a message to the support team, and let's see what their response is. If the site is under police investigations, this does not mean that the platform is frozen, otherwise it means that the platform has been sized, and therefore all depositors' funds are frozen.
If users cannot withdraw it is an exit scam, they may not have enough liquidity and therefore everything may suddenly disappear.

it is more likely to an exit scam than police investigations

Yeah, I hope you are wrong indeed  ;D
I've got some altcoin on that exchange that's worth a nice sum, I really can't afford to loose that money now, not now that I've got alot of dept to settle.
I deposited and bought that altcoin from the exchange, I was hoping to still buy more of the altcoin and withdraw everything altogether at once, to cut down on withdrawal fees, unfortunately for me, this announcement came 2 days after I bought the said altcoin, i  really wish I withdrew them immediately after buying..

Anyways, I am still very hopeful, believing they will get everything sorted out soon and return better and stronger, this I pray.

It is unfortunate that users of that exchange would have to go through this experience for days now. This is not a good business strategy to have stopped their customers and clients from making withdrawals.  Does it mean they do not have much funds in their reserve to pay back if there is any possibility that such an occurrence took place via their exchange. How can they hold customer to ransom from making withdrawals. I hope they are ready to face possible legal actions for such restrictions.
If they accept deposit them they should be able to allow withdrawal while the investigation is ongoing till it is over otherwise they should have put a halt to both activities or are they trying to gather funds so if anything happens and and unfortunate events happens they would come on air to tell their clients cock and bull tales it possibly abscond with funds.

That's a shitty decision made, it is only "an" account why it all users looks like affected and suffered because this one account is suspected of money laundering. Worst it already take 9 days yet no success on the investigation? That's shitty.

At least we have to commend them for their communication,  and hope this was just one of those routine maintainance runs being done in the background and maybe waiting for wallets to synch or something ...

As for Deposits going through, well this is the mystery question that they never want to answer honestly or with a smile on their face,  but I think this is left open to not keep all their clients away as this might turn into a nightmare for them if all go and never comeback, so to keep one side of their business running is a vital component!

Freezing funds is the stupidest decision the platform may take because it creates a panic aura. If you do not have a problem and you have sufficient liquidity, then making such a decision for such a long period means the death of the platform, everyone will withdraw their money as soon as it is possible to do so, and you will not get their trust or new deposits.

Legal procedures take time, so it was better for them to allow users to withdraw their money or request identity verification before that, and then announce the temporary closure of the platform due to some legal problems. Hopefully they know what they are doing and will return the depositors money.

Why haven't we heard a lot of discussions here or heard of them before.

That's the first thing I thought of but now there is a link about the suspension of withdrawals as soon as you enter the on top page.


And it leads to the page cited by the OP. Anyway, I don't know why it took them so long to put it up but it sounds fishy because withdrawals had been suspended for 9 days already yesterday, no matter how much they want to appear honest now putting the explanation visible on top.

The right thing to do is to disable the deposit traders will not deposit to a platform with issues with withdrawal, you are right that they will only deposit if they are not aware of the issue.


Still not good, even if they are still active on their social media account the suspicion will still there
the longer this issue is not resolved the suspicion will grow.  



They should provide additional info because according to one stat they have over 8 million users in over 100 countries which will have a big impact on the industry, The FTX meltdown is still fresh the industry cannot afford another rug pull, if you have an account here with a big amount stored you'll have sleepness night and you can only have relief if they cleared and open withdrawal.

It was an unavoidable decision if the authorities wanted it. I think it makes perfect sense that suspicion of money laundering activity would lead to a suspension of withdrawals to make the investigation easier, even in some cases the exchange could be asked to stop all activity.

Why wouldn't they just lock withdrawals of accounts they suspect involved in the money laundering? Seems a bit overkill to lock everyone's account if they don't suspect everyone of doing the crime or lack proof. Hopefully they get it resolved and regular users can get their funds.

They all are FTX. The difference is some can survive and some can't.

It's surprising that they still have deposit ON and what is more surprising, they have tweeted in a while. I just had a check in their telegram group and I haven't seen any official update although a few of their shilling account was saying, "It's very much common. Bkex will soon be live."
I'm now suspecting that they are doing shady activities or they are fucked up with liquidity although there's an accusation from Chainalysis that Bkex has money laundered.

I still believe that is overkill as mentioned above. If an authority already requires a platform to cooperate with their investigation, they should already have some data to go by. It would be wild if they decide to freeze every account because one or two addresses make suspicious activities. I don't think it is hard to just disable one or two withdrawal addresses/wallets related to any suspicious address and allow registered users to withdraw their funds through other hot wallets. Unless of course, they have only one hot wallet/cold wallet to process every transaction so every funds get mixed. CMIIW.

There are also unconfirmed rumors that MEXC exchange is dumping their own customers' tokens and the exchange is using leverage to short those tokens. Withdrawals were also mentioned to be cancelled which might be a signal that the owners are ready to rugpull.

If this is true then this certainly makes it appear that there might be more of the smaller exchanges that are secretly insolvent.

In my country, doing such a violation may lead to the suspension of the license from you in the worst case, but this does not prevent you from being able to withdraw from addresses that are not related to investigations, and judicial rulings give 6 months, provided that the user has put his identity verification data. I mean that the process will be, closing all new deposits, collecting all withdrawals except those whose identity has been verified in the worst case, and even this will happen with an automatic effect for some accounts and the effect of a part of withdrawals above a certain amount.

What is happening now is scam.

That should be the right to do, locking all withdrawals triggers warnings on all accounts and it becomes big news, and there are growing suspicions that there's a rug pull coming.

Bkex has millions of users and you can't expect these users not to complain and just wait patiently, this is a growing concern the number of days is adding up and these users will demand updates.

 

The platform is not winding up, they are just under investigation by the governmental authority. If they refuse deposit, it will create more panic. Allowing people to deposit will show the exchange is still active.
Taking about seizing of the website which is possible, because if the investigators cannot get what they are looking for, they could accuse the exchange for conspiracy or any other reasons to seize the website.
This is a major disadvantage of keeping funds in exchange. Whatever the authority asks for it, they won't even consent you and give them all the necessary information needed. Who can confirm the status of the exchange as of today?

Bro, I don't think I will be comfortable depositing in an exchange that disables their withdrawals and I guess many will agree if an exchange is facing an issue like this I prefer that the issue be first resolved and they are back in full operation, between withdrawals and deposits I prefer the withdrawals to be the one active.


I totally agree you just don't know what's going to happen to your funds right now the top exchange Binance is having an issue with US authorities, and what more on other exchanges.

It's been 12 days now I based the number of days on OP's posts this is depressing for those who have funds here, like other members' opinions I prefer that they disable accounts that are involved in money laundering, and not all accounts because it creates negative news.

Well, you are talking from the customer aspect and not from the exchange owners aspect. If deposit has issues and withdrawal is seamless, within 24hrs you will not find any fund in your exchange anymore. Everyone will rush to withdrawal all their funds. That is the reason why in both exchanges and gambling sites, it's always the withdrawal end that is having issues.
Meanwhile, if deposit is working,  people can continue trading, staking and converting coins pending when the withdrawal issue is solved. This depends on your level of confidence in the said exchange.


That is the right thing to do, and in the case you can't fish out the particular accounts involved, you can place withdrawal restriction in certain country or area of principal suspicion.

No update on the Bkex exchange's official twitter account about reopening withdrawals yet, though they carry on with their business as usual and follow their activity on twitter as if there is no problem.

How will users trust exchanges that suddenly stop withdrawals for any reason, money laundering or otherwise? Most likely there will be panic among users and fear of losing their money forever.

No one knows what the police are doing and what accounts will be frozen. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of centralized exchanges.

This is not good on their side for having an issue like this since they need to do some explanation or even clarification on why such thing still happening. Maybe this is a sign that they do their exit scheme so people have balance on that exchange should be more watchful on what will happen next or if there's an update will release. To many exchange have big controversy these days and I guess this remind us again that we should never trust them.