OKEx lifts withdrawal suspension and massive amounts of Bitcoin move out

Popular cryptocurrency exchange OKEx had suspended cryptocurrency withdrawals last month after one of the exchange’s key holders went “out of touch” and all “associated authorization” for withdrawals had been prevented. Now after almost a month, the exchange is resuming crypto withdrawals. The crypto exchange announced via a post on Thursday that withdrawals have begun from 8:00 UTC on November 26.

The announcement follows a long-awaited update from the exchange last week where it confirmed that it would once again be processing cryptocurrency withdrawals, adding that Mingxing’s involvement with investigations by authorities had come to an end and he had returned to business as usual.

The exchange said:

“Presently, one of OKEx’s private key holders has completed assisting the authorities in a previously referenced investigation. Throughout this investigation, OKEx was confirmed not to have been involved in any wrongdoing or illegal activities, and the private key holder has now returned to his normal business functions.”

The Case ends Temporarily

On October 16, the exchange had noted that its key-holder was “cooperating with a public security bureau” concerning ongoing “investigations,” which it said didn’t have anything to do with OKEx.

Xu later revealed in a WeChat feed that the investigations were not regarding him, and were related to his purchase of OKGroup, a Hong Kong-listed shell company that was acquired by Xu in 2018 where he serves as a non-executive director. Last month, OKEx had revealed that it has cut ties with OK Group.

However, OKGroup said in an announcement over the weekend that the investigation by public security authority in the PRC has temporarily come to an end”

OKEx is also set to launch a series of incentive programs for its users in order to hold users and mitigate large amounts of crypto-asset flowing out of the exchange. However, the exchange will be enabling ‘unrestricted withdrawals,’ meaning that users will be able to withdraw their full holdings should they wish.

Fleeing OKEx

Based on recent events, with many major crypto exchanges being cracked down upon by regulators, customers are not putting their faith in OKEx right now as the exchange is seeing massive withdrawals.

Just a few minutes after the suspension was lifted, a whopping 2,822 bitcoins were moved from OKEx, which is by far the biggest single-block outflow since May 2019, per data from blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant.

Around 456 bitcoin were transferred to crypto exchange Binance and over 400 bitcoins were sent to other exchanges. Meanwhile, 54 accounts or addresses took direct custody of some coins. 

Bitcoin also dropped more than $3,000 on Thursday, just before OKEx was due to restart withdrawals. It’s not clear if the two events may be linked, but some analysts state this is purely coincidental.

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