BitMart stopped accepting new orders at 1:30 a.m. UTC on Sunday, catching most users off guard — even though the decision had been brewing behind closed doors for days. Two days earlier, the board fired chief executive Nathan Chow. Then came the wind-down announcement.
The shutdown is spread over roughly six months. New sign-ups, deposits, and most trading products — spot, futures, copy trading, grid bots, API access — are already off or being phased out. Futures positions were switched to reduce-only, so traders can close them but not open new ones. All trading stops on August 26; the platform shuts for good on January 31, 2027.
The exchange's token, BMX, reacted instantly: it lost around 58% in 24 hours, trading near six cents — about 82% below its all-time high of $0.62 set in June 2024. BMX holders got fee discounts and other perks on the platform; those benefits evaporate with the exchange itself.
Chow says he had nothing to do with the closure decision. He was fired on July 24 and learned about the wind-down from public channels, the same way customers did. BitMart attributed the exit to a review of "operating conditions and market environment," without elaborating.
BitMart had been running for nine years and served more than 13 million users across over 180 countries. It already had one black mark on its record: a $150 million hack in December 2021. The irony is that, shortly before announcing its closure, the company was touting 256% growth in assets under management and expansion plans.
For users, the immediate question is how much time is actually left to pull funds out before August. For the market, it's one more reminder that even exchanges with years of history and millions of customers can fold almost overnight once the business stops working.
