OKEx Suspends Withdrawls

[Rodeo02]

That's why it's really important to consider where you will store your coins before investing in crypto. "Not your keys, not your coins" is like a bitcoiners' mantra nowadays.

Let's just wait how they going to fix this things out, maybe sooner at later we will get latest news or update from them that we are able to widraw our balance  for now let's just wait.

And for the storing your crypto i agree  with that,it should be stored always in secured place which is your own wallet with your own keys  use only exchange for trading porpuses.

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[wack slacker]

This is the main reason for Bitcoin falling in price today. There have been some scandals regarding centralized exchanges recently starting with Bithumb, Kucoin, Bitmex, and OKEx. What will the next exchange be in trouble? I'm thinking of Binance and Houbi.
Centralized exchanges have performed poorly this year. They list ambiguous projects, have been accused of fraud, and have security concerns.
Centralized exchanges are indirectly destroying the crypto space with their scandals.
Particularly OkeX, they recently requested $ 1 million for listing a project called LAMDEN. They guarantee their listing and promoting them to everyone.
The $ 1 million fees are too high and unreasonable.
https://twitter.com/stuartrfarmer/status/1316074581040328706

[stompix]

for the past 6 days bitcoin price has been going up and down from $11100 to $11700 and back multiple times. doing the same thing which is also within the range of <5%-10% doesn't need any reason. it is simply the daily market fluctuations.

This drop was exactly timed with the news, happened the same time all over exchanges, yes, it was panic but it's not something that happens daily, we had days and weeks of the price being flat as the Bonneville Salt Flats, besides I don't see why this would not trigger some panic selling, this thing happens in other markets too, just think of Musk's tweets about his own stocks.

About the arrest, this is China, common people, how many times have we heard news about exchanges getting raided by the police and then nothing really bad happen? Remember that Star Xu has been arrested in 2018 and then released.

[onecall123]

OKex withdrawals has suspended, seems like users are getting worried about their funds, they make appeal let them perform to make withdrawal. OKex has never had a major hack before and I wish it might not turn exit scam process. Until now no phishy things happen, so no trust to rumor. Rely only on further announcements from OKex.

[gentlemand]

OKex withdrawals has suspended, seems like users are getting worried about their funds, they make appeal let them perform to make withdrawal. OKex has never had a major hack before and I wish it might not turn exit scam process. Until now no phishy things happen, so no trust to rumor. Rely only on further announcements from OKex.

There've been many question marks about their behaviour in the past. Just because you haven't been hacked does not mean you're a wonderful, wholesome person. Hopefully this will be resolved rapidly but no one should be thinking places like this are as solid as a real financial institution.

[aioc]

The explanation given in this announcement is that one person or entity is a private key holder that he/she is now cooperating with government agents.
Was this a multisig wallet? Is it that OKex hands the keys to one employee or partner? I don't understand a lot how one entity can have access to private keys and there is not a backup plan for cases like this.
So what happens if the Chinese or another government asks this holder to hand over the private keys?

The fact is that with centralized exchanges we have to trust these institutions that they will perform the actions we asked and not mess with our funds. After everything we have seen starting from the early exchanges until today, we should now be more careful and trust only ourselves. Bitcoin is not about exchanges but freedom of transactions and does not require a third party to run.



Hold your keys to own your Bitcoin.

This is quite scary for traders of this exchange, they have no control now and they have to wait for an update, that will sometimes lasts from several days to weeks, another story about centralized exchange having issues hope they can fix this quick, only put your coins when you are going to trade but never store a big amount it's to risky.

[Kemarit]

Lots of confusion, but as per OKEx is still suspended.

Whale alerts tweeted that a huge amount of Bitcoin, 3500 BTC was move from OKeX to Binance. But OKeX quickly clarified that those addresses does not belong to them so it was a mislabeled.

https://twitter.com/OKEx/status/1317153738230956032

That's the problem with whale alert though, anyhow, let's see how it pans out.

As of 3:00 am UTC today, Oct. 16, OKEx has suspended digital asset withdrawals temporarily.* We would like to assure users that the security of funds on OKEx has not been affected. Additionally, all other operations on OKEx are functioning normally.

https://www.okex.com/academy/en/okex-confirms-all-user-funds-safe-non-withdrawal-platform-ops-functioning-as-usual

[The Sceptical Chymist]

They just announced that Okex founder Star Xu was arrested by police, but we are still waiting for confirmation of this news.

Yikes.

His social media Weibo profile is also gone

Yikes!

no one should be thinking places like this are as solid as a real financial institution.

Damn straight, and I think everyone in crypto from complete newbies to veterans ought to come to the realization that crypto exchanges are not "real financial institutions" in the sense that we consider banks to be.  A lot of them are still in Wild West territory where rules haven't been established as to their regulation and so forth, and it seems like half the time when an exchange hits the news, most people don't even seem to know what country the exchange operates out of, much less who owns it, or any of the other info that you could find out easily about a bank or a stock brokerage.

I've heard of OKex but never used them.  Are they one of the Asian exchanges with a decent reputation?  In any case, if the founder got arrested for any alleged wrongdoing involving the exchange, that doesn't bode well for OKex's customers.

[gentlemand]

Yup. Reminds me of when Gox went down. There were people with the actual gall, or delusion, to say it was 'too big to fail'.


One autist on a beach ball is on a par with HSBC?

[Bitcoin_bullish]

This twitter user sums up what happened and it is all very strange. OKEx lied has given some contradicting statements quite a few times during the day.

https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1317290950943600640

The exchange wants to pass it as some personal matter of the CEO that affected their business.
Personal matter of the CEO and the exchange suspends the withdrawls, it is ridiculous.

[stompix]

Rely only on further announcements from OKex.

Yeah right.
Like people should have relied on what MtGox was saying or Quadriga or all the rest?
Remember when CZ was threatening a Japanese newspaper with defamation lawsuits while he was packing his bags and fleeing Japan?
Funds are SAFU!

I've heard of OKex but never used them.  Are they one of the Asian exchanges with a decent reputation?  In any case, if the founder got arrested for any alleged wrongdoing involving the exchange, that doesn't bode well for OKex's customers.

They are OkCoin, the fathers of volume faking alongside the mother of all faking Huobi.
Seems like all Asian exchanges are going to be involved in some serious scandals that might be the end of them pretty soon.
Binance has fled HK, Japan then Malta and now operates from nowhere, Upbit has been raided by the police, Bithumg the same, Bitfinex....lol.

[khaled0111]

It looks like this news have affected their mining pool too.
Okex pool's hashrate has dropped by ~42% during the last 24 hours!

I assume more miners will switch to other mining pools because of the withdrawal suspension.

[figmentofmyass]

Didn't Mr Xu keep everyone's private keys in his girlfriend's grandmother's cupboard?

his wife and mother had copies of the private keys.

this was the policy when CZ was working there.

Star alone holds the private key to the OKCoin code wallet,” he wrote. “The backup of the private keys were held by Star’s wife and mother, both of whom are non-technical.”

who knows what's happening at okex several years later though.

anyway, fingers crossed for okex customers. this isn't the first time star has been in police custody. it's not over yet.

And if I remember rightly he was 'investing' customer funds in crappy investment schemes, or maybe that was Huobi.

it was both of them lol. looking back, it makes sense considering neither of them were charging trading fees. their profit had to come from somewhere.....

[Yaunfitda]

This twitter user sums up what happened and it is all very strange. OKEx lied has given some contradicting statements quite a few times during the day.

https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1317290950943600640

The exchange wants to pass it as some personal matter of the CEO that affected their business.
Personal matter of the CEO and the exchange suspends the withdrawls, it is ridiculous.

This is what I'm been suspecting all along, OKeX wanted to distance themselves with their CEO to look like it has nothing to do with him, but it seems it is related after all, and what private keys held by wife and mother or at least his family members? I don't think that is a good security practice and I wouldn't trust my money with them with that kind of 'attitude'.

[ibuddy122505]

Still there is no progress of this issue, according OKEx twitter account there's no update after 16th October. I just hope the guy of OKEx key holder is safe and sound. Much bad news all around but bitcoin holding strong at $11k. Everyone is just waiting for OKEx announcements regarding on withdrawals issue and wish everything back into normal.

[Danumsigwasan]

This is the WORST thing one can imagine any exchange doing. They have given NO updates. They banned many people from Telegram, who tried to ask the reason. I myself tried asking what is the connection between locking funds and investigation, but I too was dumped from the group.

No matter what happens ahead, I have not seen a more CARELESS and ARROGANT support service!

[exstasie]

This is the WORST thing one can imagine any exchange doing. They have given NO updates. They banned many people from Telegram, who tried to ask the reason. I myself tried asking what is the connection between locking funds and investigation, but I too was dumped from the group.

No matter what happens ahead, I have not seen a more CARELESS and ARROGANT support service!

Not a good sign. I hope it's not another Wex.nz situation, where the administrators gave up the private keys to government agents under duress.

The contrast between Bitmex's recent case and this one showcases the importance of proper custodial wallet setups. Centralized services are already risky enough. OKEx adds another layer of risk since the CEO runs things in such an opaque manner. I really wonder how the keys are backed up.

[BayAreaCoins]

Yikes! Just another reason to avoid fiat IMO.

[adaseb]

Who designed their system to require ALL multi-signature keys to sign instead of a majority?  Talk about one of the stupidest decisions I've read about this year.  
Suppose one got hit by a car, are all of OKEx's funds lost?
Or is this just an exit scam? 

I think Star Xu is just one of those who has control over private keys, but the exchange may have been ordered to suspend business until further notice - I don’t believe anyone would be so stupid as to allow what happened to Quadriga exchange when one man is allegedly taken with him to the grave around $200 million of user funds.

Human stupidity is unfortunately endless, but I don’t believe that’s the case here - I would put this in the category of classic pressure from the Chinese authorities on what is illegal in Chinese territory, and we all know that Hong Kong is still playing under some of its rules that China disapproves.

The QuadrigaCX was an entirely different issue. Here the issue with OkEX is that one of the owners is in prison so he can't use his sig to allow withdraw transactions. With QuadrigaCX even though the owner died, even if he gave access to his private keys, there were no funds at all to be withdrawn.

That exchange was run like a ponzi scheme pretty much and only processed withdraws when someone did a deposit. From what I last heard, the guy deposit customer funds to leveraged exchanges like Bitmex and Bitfinex and assumed BTC would go to like $50K back in 2018 and ended up being liquidated when it hit $3K back in Dec 2018.

[naska21]

This is the WORST thing one can imagine any exchange doing. They have given NO updates. They banned many people from Telegram, who tried to ask the reason. I myself tried asking what is the connection between locking funds and investigation, but I too was dumped from the group.

No matter what happens ahead, I have not seen a more CARELESS and ARROGANT support service!

Telegram is  the last place one would  expect to find  the truth. It appears Xu is the only person who keeps the keys from OKEX cryptos, in other words, he doesn’t trust anyone working for him. If this is true then his awry doings (if any)  threaten all OKEX's customers. From now on I will think before topping up my account on OKEX. Luckily it's empty at the moment.