BitMart is facing fresh questions over its financial condition after OpenGradient co-founder and CEO Matthew Wang alleged that the cryptocurrency exchange is insolvent, saying funds belonging to his project’s market-making team remain inaccessible.
Wang said his team has been unable to withdraw assets held on BitMart and questioned whether the exchange has sufficient liquidity to meet customer obligations. He also criticized BitMart for allegedly encouraging token holders to lock assets on the platform shortly before related services were halted.
The amount and composition of OpenGradient’s trapped assets have not been publicly disclosed. More importantly, BitMart has not been independently established as insolvent, making Wang’s claim an allegation rather than a confirmed assessment of the exchange’s balance sheet.
The accusations arrive at a particularly sensitive moment because BitMart is already conducting a phased wind-down of its global trading platform. Withdrawals are officially still available, but users and projects have reported delays as the exchange processes requests and performs additional compliance checks.
Locked-Fund Allegations Intensify Liquidity Concerns
Wang’s most serious accusation concerns BitMart’s actions immediately before services began shutting down. According to his account, the exchange was still encouraging token holders to lock assets approximately one week before halting related services. Wang characterized the campaign as an attempt to obtain liquidity, arguing that its timing was difficult to reconcile with an orderly shutdown.
That claim has not been independently substantiated, and BitMart has not publicly provided evidence showing that locked-user assets were used to fund withdrawals or other obligations.
However, OpenGradient is not the only project reporting delayed access to assets. Scandic Coin has separately said approximately 21,898 USDT and 926,635 SNC submitted for withdrawal on July 26 remained unprocessed. The project stopped short of declaring BitMart insolvent but requested verifiable evidence that the exchange has sufficient liquidity to meet its obligations.
The reports have become more consequential because BitMart is simultaneously winding down its exchange.
The phased shutdown began on July 26, with new registrations, deposits and spot orders halted and futures accounts moved into reduce-only mode. Trading services are scheduled to cease on August 26, while the broader trading-platform wind-down is expected to continue into January 2027.
BitMart says customers can continue requesting withdrawals during this process, although transactions may be delayed by identity verification, source-of-funds checks, wallet-ownership verification and sanctions screening.
Founder Denies Misappropriation, but Reserve Questions Remain
BitMart founder Sheldon Xia has rejected broader accusations that the exchange has misused customer assets. Responding to concerns on August 8, Xia said BitMart had not fled and would not do so. He said the exchange’s core team was conducting an asset inventory, consolidating assets and maintaining systems as part of what he described as an orderly wind-down.
Xia also denied that customer assets had been misappropriated and said BitMart was considering involvement from courts and third-party auditors, with a transparent report expected.
What remains absent is independently verifiable financial data capable of resolving the dispute.
BitMart said in May that it was preparing a proof-of-reserves report following earlier withdrawal complaints. As of the latest reports, a comprehensive reserve disclosure has not been published.
Even proof of reserves alone would not definitively establish solvency. A meaningful assessment requires information about both sides of an exchange’s balance sheet: assets under its control and liabilities owed to customers, lenders and other counterparties.
Without those figures, neither Wang’s allegation of insolvency nor BitMart’s assurances can independently establish the exchange’s financial position.
That distinction is particularly important following previous centralized-exchange failures, where withdrawal delays became an early warning sign of deeper liquidity problems. At the same time, withdrawal delays can also result from compliance reviews, operational problems or an unusually large volume of requests without implying that an exchange’s liabilities exceed its assets.
For BitMart, the immediate challenge is therefore one of verifiability. OpenGradient says its market-making funds cannot be withdrawn. Another project has reported substantial delayed withdrawals. BitMart is simultaneously shutting down trading operations, while its founder insists assets have not been misappropriated.
Until the exchange publishes independently verifiable reserves and liabilities—or processes the outstanding withdrawals—the market has no definitive way to determine which explanation is correct.
Wang’s insolvency accusation remains unproven. But as BitMart winds down its platform, the continued inability of customers and counterparties to access funds is putting increasing pressure on the exchange to demonstrate that those assets are actually there.
