
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. This isn't just a MiCA issue. ” The user claims that there are still 34,174 USDT + 25,592 XRP that have not been settled or withdrawn.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 supervisory authorities in the country or region where they are located. 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 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. The founding team disputes AscendEX founder George Cao (real name Jing Cao), who has a gorgeous resume. According to Linkedin, Cao Jing has a doctorate degree in computer science from the University of Chicago. He...






