OKEx suspends withdrawals - reason is lack of access to the key

Today, the OKEx exchange has suspended withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies, for an indefinite period. According to the company's explanations, one of the private key holders is out of its reach due to "personal problems". 

The personal problem of the person needed to transfer the exchange assets is cooperation with the public security office. These units are field offices of the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, which is the main head of the Chinese police. OKEx is a exchange registered in Malta and Seychelles, but most of its users come from China. There are also many employees in the country. The exchange was founded in 2014 by the Chinese bitcoin tycoon Stara Xu.

Lack of contact with the key holder made it impossible to authorize payments. The Exchange informed about the problems in a notice published in the early morning, on Friday 16.10. The case conducted by the public security office is to be personal and not related in any way to OKEx activities. The investigation will not affect the business," said Stock Exchange CEO Jay Hao. According to his statement, customer funds are safe. Hao also said that the payout restrictions do not apply to non-cryptographic assets. However, his stock exchange does not support traditional currencies.

According to Whale Alert - a well-known twitter account informing about crypto transfers, significant amounts of BTC, ETH and TRX have flown out of OKEx-related wallets. This happened yesterday and a few hours before the information about the suspension of withdrawals was given. More than 21,000 ETH, 1180 BTC and 50,000,000 TRX were expected to leave the exchange accounts - all worth almost $24 million in total.

Shortly after the announcement of the suspension by OKEx, the price of bitcoin fell by more than 2.5% within 30 minutes. It reached USD 11182 on the Exchange before rising again to USD 11300.