Orionx Freezes Withdrawals and Announces Permanent Shutdown After Finding Over $7M Custody Gap

Orionx, a Santiago-based cryptocurrency exchange backed by Tether, said on September 3 it will shut down permanently after a forensic audit identified a custody shortfall of more than $7 million in customer assets. The company also halted all withdrawals, leaving over 100,000 registered users unable to access their funds. Ahead of the public announcement, Orionx filed a criminal complaint against co-founders Joaquín Díaz and Roberto Zibert, as well as other former employees. The complaint alleges unauthorized transfers of customer assets between 2018 and 2021. The forensic review matched Orionx's internal transaction records with on-chain data and found a mismatch between customer account balances and the assets actually held in the exchange's wallets. The audit says missing funds include Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, and Polygon's POL, which were reportedly moved to external addresses without proper authorization. Orionx outlined a phased restitution plan, but said it cannot guarantee full recovery. The process remains at an early stage, and there has been no independent confirmation that the transferred assets can be recovered. Díaz and Zibert have denied wrongdoing. Tether was the sole investor in Orionx's Series A round in June 2025, about 15 months before the exchange's collapse. Chile's Financial Market Commission (CMF) said on September 4 that Orionx's license application had been rejected on June 19, 2026. The regulator added that Orionx never operated under Chile's Fintech Law and was not formally supervised by the country's financial authorities.