On August 6, 2026, a Bitcointalk user called doesntworkthatway raised the alarm: BitMart has blocked withdrawals, while spot and futures trading keeps running. The OP asked the community for ideas on how to rescue their funds — including the trick of buying a low-liquidity coin on one exchange and selling it at the same time on another. User Hatchy suggested checking whether P2P still works as a way to cash out into fiat at least, but JeromeTash made a fair point: who in their right mind would buy coins you can't withdraw? Everyone wants one thing only — to get their money out.

The official version and the deadline confusion

Moderator OmegaStarScream shared the exchange's official announcement on X: on July 26, registration, deposits, and new orders were suspended; on August 26, all trading will stop; and on January 31, 2027, the platform will shut down for good. Withdrawals, the exchange assures everyone, should stay available.

Only the dates turned into a mess. As hosemary figured out, the exchange "strongly recommends" closing positions and filing withdrawal requests by August 26, while US users are ordered to pull everything out by August 8 — or face "strict compliance checks". Meanwhile, the platform will formally keep running until the end of January 2027. acroman08 quoted the rules: anyone who missed the "recommended deadline" goes into a "special processing procedure" with its own document requirements. What that looks like — nobody has a clue.

Reality: withdrawals stuck, support silent

Proof of trouble showed up fast. According to doesntworkthatway, withdrawal requests have been sitting in "pending" for about 10 days, limits have been slashed 100–500x, and you can't even get $1 out. As evidence, he shared a Telegram group of victims (t.me/bitmartscam2026) where hundreds of people are in the same boat, and later put together a whole collection of material: Trustpilot reviews, a victims account, a Wikibit post, a Cryptorank piece about Americans getting just a few days before the aggressive checks kick in, a formal request from Scandic Coin over delayed SNC token withdrawals, and a Reddit thread.

User hosemary checked the exchange's official Telegram group (t.me/BitMartExchange) — complaints about unprocessed withdrawals and support going silent are everywhere. Cookdata confirmed that the latest pinned update on withdrawals is dated July 25, and warned that scammers are prowling the group — never DM anyone about withdrawals, ever. doesntworkthatway added a creepy detail: the exchange's admins deleted their Telegram accounts about 10 days ago — all at the same time. And according to Nwada001, whose friend's money is stuck on the exchange, support answers hit-or-miss and doesn't actually help at all.

Skeptics vs. realists

Part of the forum balked at the word "scam". User r_victory argued: if BitMart had wanted to rug everyone from the start, it would've just wiped everything and vanished, not announced a closure on its official account. MArsland figured withdrawals would be rolled out in stages. Obim34 told people to just wait — withdrawals would surely be approved before the full shutdown.

But солнsilk shot back: the exchange announced it's winding down and was obligated to prioritize withdrawals, and a 10-day delay is already way too much. Orpichukwu laid out a worrying scenario: the exchange could cherry-pick which requests to process until the final date, then walk off with thousands of customers money. And coinlary flat-out said: personally, he's already calling it a scam — not a single email to users, not a single response on stuck requests. Upgrade00 added another red flag: the exchange's social media have been dead since the announcement — exactly when communication matters most.

Insider info: no license and trading against customers

On August 8, RGBTC shared a bithunt investigation, and it flipped the whole thread. The Cayman regulator CIMA officially confirmed: BitMart, GBM Global Inc., Bachi Tech Ltd., and related entities were never registered or licensed in the Cayman Islands — even though the exchange listed that very jurisdiction in its user agreement.

Internal sources piled on the details: in April 2025, BitMart stopped hedging orders and started trading against its own customers — if a customer was in profit, their funds got frozen and withdrawals blocked for at least three months; in May there were mass layoffs with no severance; founder Sheldon Xia personally banned publishing Proof of Reserves. Global CEO Nenter Chow was fired on July 24 — two days before the public announcement — and had no say in the decision whatsoever. After that, Coyster said it straight: the exchange is most likely insolvent, and this could turn into an FTX rerun — especially since BitMart was already hacked for nearly $200 million a few years back, and many of those victims never got a dime.

Xia resurfaced, but the money still hasn't

User $crypto$ reported that the founder finally spoke up: Xia claims he never disappeared, denies the rumors, and is ready to go to court and bring in third-party auditors. Catch is: exchange employees still haven't been paid — which smells a lot like stalling for time.

Hamza2424 spotted a comment under Xia's post from someone with $10 million stuck on the exchange — per $crypto$, that's $5 million in USDT and $5 million in USDC. Smack That Ace explained why anyone would even keep sums like that on a CEX: institutions and market makers need liquidity for arbitrage, algo trading, and OTC deals. But the forum's takeaway was one line: not your keys, not your coins. Small users are hurting just as much — aksu said fees of $5–11 would eat up his small balance spread across several currencies, and the virtual card vanished from Google Wallet. Moderator NotATether filed a withdrawal for his ~$45 in ETH and found the exchange's cards are down too; later he summed it up: "I consider my $50 lost".

Complaints, lawsuits, and a sudden twist

Hamza2424 urged everyone to file reports with the authorities — one participant already has (t.me/bitmartscam2026/11903). doesntworkthatway shared a guide on where and how to complain ^[1], estimating the stuck funds at hundreds of millions of dollars. Coyster added that if nothing changes, a class action is the last resort — the coordinator's contacts, according to RGBTC, are in the bithunt article. And when aksu asked why crypto keeps pumping while BitMart sits on other people's money, noorman0 gave a sober answer: the exchange's bitcoin reserves are around $115 million per Arkham — nowhere near enough to move the market.

On August 22 came an unexpected twist: OmegaStarScream reported that BitMart is working on a plan for a "phased resumption of certain operations alongside creditor payouts", with updates due by September 9 — details on CoinDesk and in the exchange's announcement. Coyster isn't buying it: the announcement is vague, the exchange doesn't even know what it's doing itself, and it only earns trust back once withdrawals actually work.

Instead of a conclusion

The BitMart story is shaping up as a textbook case of how an "orderly wind-down" descends into chaos: promised working withdrawals, weeks of stuck requests, silent support, deleted admin accounts, and no license in the jurisdiction named in its own user agreement. Whether it ends as FTX 2.0 or creditor payouts — the courts and September 9 will tell. And the lesson the forum repeated in every other comment is simple: not your keys, not your coins.