Are Chinese University of Science and Technology+Shibata's college bullies and money industry bosses running away from New York?
Another exchange in the coin industry is about to disappear.
AscendEX (Pinnacle, formerly BitMax) ceased operations.
According to AscendEX's official website announcement, the platform will completely stop all business operations from July 1, 2026 — it will no longer provide account opening, deposit, trading, pledge, loan and activity services, and will only retain limited account access to handle withdrawals, KYC updates, complaints and export transaction records. Since July 6, all withdrawal channels have been automatically processed, and all have been reviewed manually.
The official even bluntly stated in the announcement:”Withdrawals may be delayed or may not be processed during the review period. There is currently no guarantee on the timing or amount of withdrawals”.
AscendEX blamed the shutdown on the “current market environment” and the impact of the European Union's Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act (MiCA), claiming that it was forced to shut down due to a lack of MiCA authorization combined with “broader regulatory, financial, and operational factors.”
ZachXBT serial warning: from “withdrawal delays” to “almost zero liquid assets”
As early as June 26, 2026, on-chain detective ZachXBT issued a community alert on the X platform: several AscendEX users reported that withdrawals were delayed for several days to weeks, or even impossible to process at all.
Judging from feedback from communities such as Reddit and X, starting in early June, many users will stay in the “Initiating” (initiating) state for a long time after submitting their withdrawal requests.
The problem seems to have come to an end as early as May.
An AscendEX user told Bitpush:”My withdrawals have been restricted since May 6th, long before AscendEX's official shutdown announcement. AscendEX asked me to stop my public activity and notified me to enter a phased settlement process on June 12. On June 24, they authorized the first settlement withdrawal, but then the withdrawal was marked “Rejected” without any TXID. It's not just a MiCA problem. ”
The user claims that there are still 34,174 USDT + 25,592 XRP unsettled and withdrawn.
After reviewing AscendEX's known hot wallets, ZachXBT found that the platform had almost no reserves on mainstream assets such as ETH, USDT, and SOL.
Blockchain data platform Arkham Intelligence shows that currently (as of July 8, EST), AscendEX label addresses only hold about $13.45 million in crypto assets, of which more than $12 million is concentrated in the platform's own ASD token and Unbound Science's Unite token. To put it bluntly, there are almost zero mainstream stablecoins and liquid assets that can actually be used to pay user withdrawals.
However, while the platform freezes withdrawals, it still accepts user deposits normally.
By July 2, the situation had worsened further. ZachXBT revealed that AscendEX's official X account has been suspended for 9 consecutive days since the initial warning.
A victim of large sums said he had contacted AscendEX co-founder George Cao several times to report issues and received no response.
At the time, ZachXBT publicly advised users whose funds were frozen to report cases to the law enforcement authorities and regulators in their country or region.
By July 8, ZachXBT stated that its verified user claims had reached millions of dollars, but judging from AscendEX's public hot wallet situation, there is currently almost no current assets available to pay for relevant withdrawal requests.
Another detail is worth noting.
On-chain records show that on June 20 — six days earlier than ZachXBT's initial warning — the AscendEX wallet balance suddenly crashed, evaporating more than $240 million in a single day.
Strangely enough, less than two months ago, the address had just had a capital injection of about the same size, and since then the reserves have stabilized at around 50 million US dollars. That $240 million capital injection held up the books for a short time, but it was emptied all at once on June 20.
This means that the core liquidity of the platform had already been artificially taken away 11 days before the official claim was forced to shut down due to MiCA regulations.
Was it an early transfer? Is debt repayment? Or is it the last “retreat” for some? No one knows yet. The only sure thing is:
The money is gone.
Founding team disputes
AscendEX founder George Cao (real name Jing Cao) has a gorgeous resume.
According to Linkedin, Cao Jing has a doctorate degree in computer science from the University of Chicago. He founded the quantitative trading fund Delpha Capital Management and was the chief investment executive; previously, he worked in the New York and London divisions of Barclays Capital (Barclays Capital), respectively, as the quantitative investment director, and was responsible for quantitative trading of stock and index products in the US, European and Asian markets.
In 2018, Cao Jing and Ariel Ling co-founded BitMax, and the brand was upgraded to AscendEX (AscendEX) in March 2021.
At its peak, AscendEX was among the top ten centralized exchanges in the world. In 2021, the platform completed Series B financing of 50 million US dollars, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with a valuation of 450 million US dollars.
Cao Jing herself also controls AimFinity Investment Corp. (listed in 2022), a NASDAQ-listed SPAC company, and announced a merger with Taiwanese health watch company Docter in October 2023 at a consideration of 60 million US dollars.
Dr. Wall Street and the actual controller of a NASDAQ listed company, now don't say a word to users with trapped funds.
X Account CoinCircle Encyclopedia (@forevergalxy) has revealed more information from within the team, including claims that Cao Jing's wife, Jasmine Ma, is the platform's New York financial director, is unpaid, and has fabricated false investment and financing relationships with the Malaysian royal family and the Turkish President's Office to stabilize employees while transferring users' assets. Since there is no public information to obtain evidence, I won't go into too much detail here. If you are interested, please refer to: (https://x.com/forevergalxy/status/2074021795858952588）
It's only been five years since the “peak” to the “abyss.”
There is already a “criminal record”: $78 million was stolen by hackers in 2021
AscendEX isn't the first time it's in crisis.
In December 2021, the platform's EVM hot wallet, Tron hot wallet, and Solana hot wallet were hacked. Security agency PeckShield estimates losses of around $77.7 million, of which Ethereum tokens alone account for around $60 million.
The attack is alleged to be linked to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.
At the time, AscendEX transferred unaffected assets to cold wallets and promised to reimburse users for losses. The platform did survive that crisis and continued to operate for almost five years.
But now it seems that that $78 million hit may have laid the groundwork for today's collapse. Coupled with the crisis of trust in the industry and intense competition on bear exchanges after the FTX crash in 2022, AscendEX ultimately failed to survive.
As news of the shutdown officially came to light, more victims surfaced.
ZachXBT publicly warned on X: “No one should deposit funds to this CEX” (no one should deposit funds to this centralized exchange). It also directly advises users whose assets are affected to report the case to the law enforcement agencies and supervisory authorities in the country or region where they are located to investigate responsibility related to the subject.
As of press release, AscendEX's official X account is still suspended, and Cao Jing herself has not made any public response to this incident.
Another “too good to be true” story
The collapse of AscendEX outlines a crypto narrative that couldn't be more familiar:
Gorgeous Wall Street background + 10-million-level financing + ambitious brand upgrades → Hackers hit hard → Liquidity is exhausted → Quietly shut down → Founder is out of touch → Users have lost their money.
This is not only a nightmare for AscendEX users, but also another blow to the trust of the entire CEX industry.
There are also rumors in the community that peers in the community have tried to help each other, but judging from the current situation, it is estimated that they will not be able to recover; in the end, it is unlikely.
The “peak” is over, who will be next?
Note: The data screenshots and materials in this article are compiled from public information.
Author: Little Bear Cookies
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