CoinEx Forced Conversion: Withdraw Non-USDT Balances by September 29

If a balance is still sitting at CoinEx that is not held in USDT, there are around 46 hours left for it. On September 29, 2026 at 02:00 UTC the exchange ends spot trading, and from that moment holdings that have not been withdrawn in their original currency are liquidated. Coins with liquidity on external markets are sold by the exchange in batches, according to its own statement, with the net proceeds credited as USDT in the spot account. Coins without external liquidity are delisted step by step, and for those the exchange explicitly assumes no further custody and no further redemption once processing has begun.

The difference from the previous understanding of this date is not a detail. Until September 29 you can decide yourself what happens to your holding. After that the exchange decides, in batches, at a price you do not know in advance. Anyone who leaves Bitcoin, Ether or a smaller altcoin at CoinEx and lets the date pass will in the end hold none of those coins but a dollar stablecoin.

Forced conversion at CoinEx: what happens to your coins on September 29 at 02:00 UTC

The rule is set out in the exchange's wind-down notice and can be summed up in one sentence: anyone who wants to keep non-USDT holdings in the original currency has to withdraw them before September 29, 2026, 02:00 UTC. After that, liquidation applies.

For the wind-down the exchange distinguishes two groups. For coins that still have liquidity on external markets, it sells the holding and converts the net proceeds into USDT; the result lands in the user's spot account. For coins without an external market there is no sale, they are delisted, and the associated wallets are, according to the exchange, no longer operated. Processing runs in batches spread across the withdrawal period, and the exchange announces no separate notices for individual batches.

One term, briefly explained: a liquidation is the sale of a holding by a third party without the owner determining the timing or the price. Economically it is a sale like any other, only without your decision on when it takes place.

That fees and deadlines can change on short notice applies with particular force during a wind-down. If you are reordering your holdings anyway, it is worth looking at exchanges with a European licence, because there a market exit does not run without wind-down rules and without supervision.

The wind-down schedule: which stages have already taken effect since September 15

September 29 is the third stage of a schedule that began on September 15. The exchange had announced its closure that day and started the wind-down immediately.

• September 15, 2026: no more new registrations, referral commissions and other forms of remuneration end. Futures move into the mode in which positions can only be reduced. New orders for fiat, margin, loans, savings products, staking and strategic trading are no longer accepted.
• September 22, 2026: all services outside the spot market end. Deposits via the blockchain stop, for the exchange token CET only on September 29. Open futures positions are force-settled at the index price, savings and staking products are repaid uniformly.
• September 29, 2026, 02:00 UTC: spot trading ends, unexecuted orders are cancelled. The in-house blockchain CoinEx Smart Chain and the decentralised exchange OneSwap cease operation. From that moment the liquidation of non-USDT holdings begins.
• December 22, 2026, 02:00 UTC: the withdrawal channel closes, operations end.

Between September 29 and December 22 the platform therefore remains a pure withdrawal counter for just under three months. That sounds like time, but it moves the decisive work forward: what you can still withdraw in that phase is what is left after the liquidation, and for most holdings that is USDT.

On the time of the December date the accounts diverge. Several reports name December 22, 2026 at 02:00 UTC, while another summary of the notice gives the time zone UTC+8 for the same day. The difference of eight hours does not matter as long as you do not wait for the last day, and that is precisely why you should not.

Batch selling without individual notice: why you will not know the execution price

The practical consequence of batch processing is a price risk that cannot be steered. The exchange names no date for the individual coin and no separate notice per batch. You therefore do not know on which day your holding will be sold, and you cannot choose the moment.

How large that risk is depends on the volatility of the coin in question. At the time of our call on September 27, 2026 at 03:48 UTC, Bitcoin stood at around $84,381 according to CoinGecko data and had gained about 4.2 percent in seven days; Ether was at around $2,697, up about 3.0 percent on the week. With smaller altcoins the range is considerably wider: in the field of the 25 largest crypto-assets, weekly changes in the same call ran between minus 2.1 and plus 41.9 percent. A sale whose day you do not know hits one side or the other of that range with such assets.

There is a second point that often gets lost: with a coin that has no external liquidity, no sale takes place at all. There you do not get a bad price, you get no price. The holding is delisted, and the exchange does not continue to operate the associated wallets.

Coins without external liquidity: when delisting puts the holding out of reach

For small and thinly traded positions, delisting is the harder part of the announcement. According to the exchange's statements, once processing has begun it assumes no further custody and no further redemption for these assets. Anyone who wants to keep such a coin has only the window until September 29 to do so, and in the original currency via a blockchain withdrawal.

Whether your coin can be withdrawn at all is not a rhetorical question here. Our own survey at CoinEx on September 15, 2026, published in our article on the closure of the exchange, found 37 currencies whose withdrawal counter was closed that day. That figure is our own measurement on one day and not a permanent state; it does show, however, that the way out is not open for every entry in the account. So check today whether your currency offers a withdrawal, rather than late on Monday evening shortly before the cut-off.

What to check specifically before the window closes

Three questions are enough to begin with. First: is there any network at all to choose from in the withdrawal section for your currency? Second: is your holding above the minimum withdrawal amount for that network? Third: does the destination address you are sending to support exactly that network? The third point is the one where money is lost in practice, because an address can look valid while belonging to a different chain.

Holding period and section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: why a forced sale is still a sale

Here lies the part that the reports on the wind-down do not cover, and which for an investor in Germany can be the most expensive. For tax purposes the liquidation is a sale. That the exchange triggers it rather than you changes nothing about that.

Crypto-assets held privately count as other assets. A sale within one year of purchase is therefore a private disposal under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, and the gain from it is taxed at your personal rate. After a year has passed, the gain is tax-free. Swapping a coin into a stablecoin is a sale just as swapping into euros is, because you give up one asset and receive another.

If you have held your position for less than a year

Then the liquidation on September 29 creates a taxable event in 2026 that you did not plan. The gain is the proceeds in USDT less your acquisition costs. That stays tax-free only as long as the total gain from all private disposals of the year remains below the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros; once it is reached, the entire gain is taxable, not only the part above it. It is explicitly not an allowance that covers only the excess.

If you have held it for longer than a year

Then the liquidation is unproblematic in tax terms, because after a year the gain lies outside the tax charge. Economically it remains a disadvantage, because you do not determine the moment of sale. Anyone who wants to keep their holding rather than see it shifted into USDT withdraws it, regardless of the tax question.

The records you secure for yourself now

A wind-down has one unpleasant property: the platform that keeps your trading history disappears. So download your transaction and withdrawal statements before operations end, rather than when the tax office asks. Anyone unable to document their acquisition costs will later be negotiating over an estimate, and the burden of proof sits with the taxpayer. A portfolio tracker with tax reporting helps here above all because it makes the data independent of the provider.

A new holding period on the USDT: what the swap means for the twelve-month clock

The second tax effect is easily overlooked. The liquidation does not only end the old holding period, it also starts a new one. The USDT you hold in the account after the sale is a newly acquired crypto-asset with its own acquisition date, and for it the twelve-month period runs again from the day it is credited.

With a stablecoin that sounds harmless, because the price barely moves and a later sale generates hardly any gain. What matters is the holding you have replaced with it: if a coin you have held for eleven months is liquidated on September 29, you lose the month that would have taken you into tax exemption. Anyone close to the one-year mark should therefore look up when they bought before deciding whether to withdraw or to sell.

Withdrawal fee per chain: why the exit costs up to 174,000 times as much

If you withdraw, the chain you choose determines how much arrives at the other end. Our survey on September 15, 2026 read out the withdrawal fees at CoinEx that day and found, for the same USDT, the same amount and the same moment, nine routes with very different prices: from 0.000043 USDT via the Plasma chain to 7.50 USDT via Tron. Between the cheapest and the most expensive exit there was therefore a factor of 174,000, and even between the two most-used routes, BNB Smart Chain and Tron, the factor stood at 949.

The effect hits small residual balances hardest. On a balance of 20 USDT, withdrawing via Tron costs 7.50 USDT according to this measurement, which is 37.5 percent. In 78 of 1,011 combinations of currency and network examined, the fee amounted to at least half of the respective minimum withdrawal amount. Both figures are our own measurement of September 15 and not a statement by the exchange; check the current values yourself before withdrawing, because in a wind-down fee tables change.

For Bitcoin there was exactly one withdrawal route on the measurement day, the Bitcoin network, with a fee of 0.0001 BTC against a minimum amount of 0.001 BTC, that is around a tenth of the smallest possible withdrawal. With Ether the ratio was about 0.2 percent, at a fee of 0.000011 ETH against a minimum of 0.005 ETH. The difference follows the usual costs of the respective chain and is no coincidence.

A 5 percent monthly custody fee: what happens to USDT after December 22

For USDT still sitting in the account on December 22, the exchange has announced an arrangement you should know about. The holding is transferred into separate custody, and for that the company names a monthly custody fee of 5 percent of the original holding, measured on the cut-off date. Claims can, according to statements from the notice, still be registered by email until August 22, 2028.

The basis of assessment makes the difference here. Five percent of the original amount is not a percentage deduction that merely approaches zero, it is a constant deduction. On 500 USDT that would be 25 USDT a month, every month, which would exhaust the holding after 20 months. Anyone who misses the withdrawal date does not lose their balance immediately, then, but foreseeably.

CET buyback at 0.005 USDT: what holders of the exchange token decide by Tuesday

The in-house token CET is being bought back until September 29 at 0.005 USDT per unit, according to the exchange, with no volume cap and no further conditions; CET still sitting in accounts after that is bought back automatically at the same price. The company holds out no prospect of a later redemption. Deposits of CET via the blockchain were the only ones still possible until September 29, while for all other assets they already ended on September 22.

Our measurement of September 15 showed CET in all three calls at 0.005 or 0.005001 USDT, so practically exactly at the announced buyback price. A buyback at a fixed price acts like a floor that the market aligns itself with, and that is precisely how the price behaved that day. For holders that means the difference between selling on the market and waiting for the buyback was, on the measurement day, in the region of the trading fee. We give no recommendation on this, because both routes hang on the same question, namely how reliable you consider the company's commitments to be.

Where to move your holding: your own wallet or an exchange with an EU licence

For the withdrawal you have two sensible destinations, and the choice depends on what you intend to do with the holding. If you want to keep it, your own wallet is the direct route: you receive the coins in the original currency, the holding period continues unchanged because no sale takes place, and you no longer depend on any provider. If you want to keep trading, the route runs via another exchange.

As the reason for the closure the company itself cites a prolonged market downturn, declining trading volume and shrinking liquidity, together with increased regulatory requirements in important jurisdictions, the cost of which in its account had exceeded a reasonable level. For an investor in Germany that is an argument for looking more closely at licensing with the next provider. The duties a provider with a European authorisation has to meet are set out in our overview of the MiCA obligations.

Whatever the destination, the same order applies to the move: first send a small test amount, check that it arrives, then the rest. That minute costs one withdrawal fee and, if something goes wrong, saves the entire holding.

Checking the CoinEx forced conversion: what you take away

1. Look today at whether a withdrawal route is open at all. Open the withdrawal section for every currency in your account and check whether a network is offered and whether your holding is above the minimum amount. If there is nothing to be had there, the only option until September 29 is a swap on the spot market into a currency that can be withdrawn. Anyone who wants to keep trading the holding afterwards will find the destination accounts for it at the larger crypto exchanges.
2. Check the acquisition date before withdrawing. If the purchase is less than a year ago, a liquidation on September 29 creates a taxable gain in 2026; if it is longer ago, the gain is tax-free, but the moment of sale remains outside your control. Download the trading history while the platform is running, and secure the records in a tax and portfolio tool that works independently of the exchange.
3. Pay attention to licensing with your next provider. A market exit without European supervision runs by the provider's rules, not by yours. If you are moving the holdings anyway, this is the cheapest moment to park them at a regulated exchange with an EU authorisation or to take them onto a hardware wallet that you keep yourself.

The exchange's notice itself is in its statement on the orderly cessation of operations. That page loads its text via JavaScript and reads normally in a browser, even though an automated call returns it empty; the dates named here have additionally been cross-checked against two independent trade reports.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)