Orionx begins permanent shutdown after forensic audit flags $7M+ custody shortfall
The Tether-backed Chilean exchange has suspended withdrawals and filed a criminal complaint naming two co-founders who deny wrongdoing.
Orionx has started a permanent closure process after a forensic audit found more than $7 million in customer custodial assets moved to wallets the exchange did not manage. The exchange has temporarily suspended withdrawals while it says it prioritizes returning as much client property as possible.
Key Takeaways
- Orionx has begun a permanent wind-down after a forensic audit found more than $7 million in customer custodial assets moved to wallets outside the exchange’s control.
- Withdrawals have been temporarily suspended as the company says its “sole priority” is returning as much client assets as possible.
- The audit identified a multi-asset custody mismatch, with Orionx’s internal recorded balances exceeding assets held at its custody addresses for BTC, ETH, XRP, and POL.
- A criminal complaint names former executives and co-founders Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, and both men have denied wrongdoing while saying the shortfall’s cause remains unclear.
Orionx Starts Permanent Shutdown After Forensic Audit Flags $7M+ Custody Gap
Orionx, a Chile-founded crypto exchange with operations across multiple Latin American markets, said it has started a permanent closure process after an external forensic audit found more than $7 million in customer custodial assets had moved to wallets the company did not manage. The announcement was shared on X on Thursday.
The immediate operational consequence is straightforward and trader-relevant: Orionx said withdrawals are “temporarily suspended,” meaning customers cannot currently move funds off-platform to external wallets or bank rails. In the same statement, the company framed the wind-down as a recovery effort rather than a pause, saying: “Our sole priority now is to return as much of our clients’ assets as possible.”
Orionx did not publish a timetable for reopening withdrawals, partial redemptions, or a formal claims process as part of the closure announcement. It also did not specify when the more than $7 million in transfers occurred, leaving users with a counterparty-risk problem that is procedural, not price-driven.
What the Audit Actually Says: Recorded Balances vs Onchain Custody for BTC, ETH, XRP and POL
Orionx’s description of the forensic work points to a classic custody shortfall pattern: the exchange’s internal ledger says customers should be owed more than what is present at the exchange’s known custody addresses. The company said the external forensic audit compared its records with “onchain-verifiable data,” which in practice means balances and transfers that can be independently checked on public blockchains.
The audit’s reported finding was not limited to one asset or one chain. Orionx said balances recorded in its systems exceeded assets held at its custody addresses for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP, and Polygon (POL). That matters because it suggests the recovery problem, if one exists, is likely to be multi-asset and operationally messy, rather than a single-token incident that can be ring-fenced.
What is not in the packet is almost as important as what is. Orionx did not provide a per-asset breakdown of the shortfall, did not name the custody addresses used for the onchain comparison, and did not state whether the “more than $7 million” figure is a net gap after any internal offsets. The company also did not specify whether the missing assets were moved via direct onchain transfers, internal account movements, or a combination.
The timeline described in the criminal complaint adds one concrete internal marker. On Aug. 27, Orionx chief operating officer Thomas Mac Millan detected what the complaint calls a “significant mismatch” between balances recorded in Orionx’s systems and assets actually held in custody. An internal review followed, and Orionx then commissioned the external forensic audit.
Criminal Complaint Details: Alleged Transfers, Named Co-Founders, and Their Denials
Orionx said it filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday against former executives Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, both co-founders, alleging they had access to the company’s crypto custody systems. The legal escalation raises the stakes, but it does not resolve causality on its own, because the packet provides no independent verification of the complaint’s claims and no court outcome.
The complaint, as described, alleges an account associated with Díaz received more than $1.5 million across 14 transfers. It also alleges another wallet received 187 ETH, more than 4.1 million USDT, and 200,000 USDC from Orionx. The same description says the complaint alleges assets were transferred out of Orionx custody between 2018 and 2021, including to accounts on other crypto platforms.
Zibert and Díaz denied the allegations. Both men said they never acted against customers’ interests, and they said the cause of Orionx’s asset shortfall remains unclear.
The procedural posture matters for traders trying to handicap recovery odds. A criminal complaint is an allegation and a starting point for prosecutors and courts, not a finding, and the packet does not indicate whether any asset-freeze orders, wallet seizures, or other preservation measures have been sought or granted.
The Orionx shuts down after $7M custody Milestones Ahead
The next Orionx updates that will move this from a headline into a process are operational, not rhetorical. The market will need specifics on whether withdrawals reopen in any form, whether partial redemptions are possible, or whether Orionx will shift customers into a formal claims process during the wind-down.
On the legal track, the key milestones sit with prosecutors and courts following the Sept. 3 criminal complaint. Any move toward asset-freeze orders or wallet seizures would change the recovery pathway, but there is no indication in the packet that such orders have been requested or issued.
The audit disclosure is also still too coarse for clean risk accounting. Orionx has only stated “more than $7 million” and named the affected assets (BTC, ETH, XRP, POL). A more precise shortfall figure and a per-asset breakdown would clarify whether the gap is concentrated in one asset or spread across multiple balances.
Finally, there is an open reputational and funding question around Tether. Orionx said Tether led its Series A in June 2025, and the shutdown comes about 15 months after that investment. The packet contains no public statement from Tether on Orionx’s wind-down or whether it will support customer recovery.
Tether’s Series A Lead and the LatAm Counterparty-Risk Read-Through
The shutdown is being read in some corners as a stablecoin-rail story, and that framing is too broad for what is actually confirmed. What is confirmed is narrower and more actionable: a Tether-backed venue has suspended withdrawals while beginning a permanent closure process, and it is doing so after an external forensic audit found a custody gap tied to assets moving outside company-controlled wallets.
The threshold that matters is whether Orionx can publish a concrete recovery mechanism that matches the audit’s multi-asset scope, and whether the criminal complaint produces preservation actions that keep remaining assets from drifting further. If withdrawals remain suspended without a claims process and without a tighter per-asset accounting, the setup starts to look like a drawn-out counterparty unwind rather than a contained operational incident.
