On-chain investigator ZachXBT warned on June 26, 2026, that AscendEX's identified hot wallets appeared to hold thin balances while users reported withdrawal requests stuck for days or weeks. AscendEX has not publicly addressed the specific findings.
ZachXBT said he had seen "multiple reports that the centralized exchange AscendEX is delaying user withdrawals for days / weeks or not processing withdrawals," per crypto.news.
He examined identified AscendEX hot wallets via Arkham and TRM across EVM, Tron, and Solana networks and found they "appear to lack large cap tokens such as ETH, USDT, USDC, SOL," a pattern he described as the platform "likely facing liquidity issues," Cryptopolitan reported.
ZachXBT directed two questions at AscendEX: "Why are users reporting delayed or incomplete withdrawals?" and "Why do the exchange's hot wallets currently lack liquid assets?" Coin Edition reported.
Complaints pre-date the public warning. Trader @KenanDuygun flagged on June 22 that USDT proceeds had been pending for more than 3.5 days with no transaction ID generated, meaning no on-chain settlement had occurred, per Cryptopolitan.
Other users reported PAXG withdrawals held up for approximately 10 days. Across the reports, requests were sitting in an "initiating" state without a blockchain transaction hash. AscendEX's own documentation states users should receive transaction IDs within two hours.
As of June 26, AscendEX had issued no response to ZachXBT's specific findings, crypto.news reported.
Its help center carries a generic notice attributing deposit and withdrawal pauses to "wallet upgrades and maintenance" and states that user account balances remain unaffected, per Crypto Times.
Hot wallets are the working balances an exchange keeps online for day-to-day outflows. An exchange's bulk reserves typically sit in cold storage, whose addresses are not always publicly identifiable on-chain.
ZachXBT's analysis is limited to the addresses visible through Arkham and TRM. Thin hot wallets raise operational questions, but they do not by themselves confirm a reserve shortfall.
The delays are also occurring during a period of broad market stress. June 26 saw heavy crypto liquidations across exchanges, a condition that historically spikes withdrawal demand. That is a legitimate concurrent factor before attributing delays solely to liquidity.
AscendEX, formerly BitMax, has faced exchange-level incidents before. In December 2021, a hot-wallet breach attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group cost the platform approximately $78 million, per Cryptopolitan.
As recently as May 2026, AscendEX halted trading on two stablecoins following an irregular token minting incident, per Crypto Times.
