OKEx Founder Purportedly Under Investigation, Exchange Stops Withdrawals

The founder of OKEx cryptocurrency exchange, Mingxing Xu (also known as Star Xu), has allegedly been interrogated by the police, as per a report published by Chinese news agency Caixin. As per the report, the executive was inspected at least a week ago and hasn’t been seen at the office for some time.

The development comes shortly after the exchange stopped withdrawals of digital currencies on its platform recently. As per the exchange, the private key holders of the exchange are cooperating with a public security agency in an ongoing inquiry. The crypto exchange mentioned:

“We are unable to disclose the nature of an ongoing investigation but would like to assure all OKEx users that their funds are safe and that all other functions on OKEx are unaffected.”

Jay Hao, the CEO of the exchange, stated that the decision to momentarily stop withdrawals was taken with security of end-users in mind. He said:

“As a world-leading exchange, user security is not something that OKEx can or will ever compromise on. We will do everything in our power to reinstate this service promptly and will provide updates on the matter as soon as possible.”

It is to be noted that Xu was earlier held by police as part of a scam inquiry back in 2018. At the time, he was not detained. As the news of Xu’s arrest broke, crypto markets took a plunge, with BTC plummeting over three percent in half an hour.