- OKEx customers are still in the dark about the state of the exchange and the funds they keep on it
- Founder Star Xu was removed from the business to speak to officials last week but hasn’t been seen since
- Deposits and withdrawals are still suspended on the exchange
It’s been a week since the crypto world was stunned by the news that a high-ranking executive at OKEx was speaking to the authorities about an undisclosed investigation, causing withdrawals and deposits on the exchange to be suspended. It is now known that the executive in question is the founder, Star Xu, but apart from that, the crypto space is still none the wiser, while OKEx withdrawals and deposits are still suspended.
Where is Star Xu?
Initial reports last Friday suggested that Xu had been arrested by Chinese police, but this has since been corrected to reflect the less serious nature of his apprehension. Instead, Xu was invited to attend a police station and was “cooperating with a public security bureau” investigation, so the story now goes.
More than that we still don’t know. Has Xu been released? Has he been arrested? What was the investigation about? OKG Technology, a Xu-controlled company based in Hong Kong said on October 18 that Xu “is presently under an investigation” by China’s police enforcement, although this has yet to be officially confirmed.
OKEx themselves either don’t know or aren’t saying – they have made no further public update on Xu’s situation since the 16th when they said they couldn’t contact him.
OKEx Customers Directly Impacted
The only thing OKEx users know is that Xu’s continuing absence from the business means that deposits into and withdrawals out of the platform are still on hold, although it has resumed peer-to-peer fiat-to-crypto trading for the Chinese yuan, Vietnamese dong, and Indian rupee currencies.
The continuing inability for OKEx to operate a major part of its business raises the question of why the founder (who is not the CEO of the company) needs to be present for commonplace exchange practices like withdrawals and deposits.
Is it just Xu who needs to be present for withdrawals, or are there other key individuals whose absence cannot be endured in order for the exchange to continue to operate? What happens if one of them dies? The process does not seem to be particularly well thought out.
The more this silence continues the more worried OKEx customers will get, and rightly so. This is a highly unusual situation that has had a direct impact on customers, and, assuming everything returns to normal in the immediate future, OKEx will surely have to change their processes for such eventualities.
