CoinEx’s staged shutdown reached one of its most important deadlines on September 29, with the exchange’s scheduled spot-trading cutoff passing at 02:00 UTC and processing of remaining non-USDT assets beginning under its wind-down plan.
Several hours after that deadline, a Pepecoin address identified by blockchain explorers as belonging to CoinEx still held approximately 1.647 billion PEP. When checked on September 29, Pepeplorer showed a balance of about 1.647 billion PEP and activity within the previous hour.
That does not mean CoinEx still owes customers 1.647 billion PEP, nor does the wallet balance show how much is scheduled for liquidation. Exchange-controlled addresses can contain customer funds, operational balances and coins moving between internal or external destinations. What the blockchain does show is that a substantial amount of PEP remained in the tagged address after the spot-trading cutoff had passed.
The balance also provides a useful comparison with warnings circulated before the deadline. On September 24, Pepecoin community monitoring estimated that roughly 2.3 billion PEP was still held in the same known CoinEx wallet. The current reading is around 650 million PEP lower than that approximate pre-cutoff snapshot.
An even earlier community warning had put the balance near 3.3 billion PEP, suggesting that a substantial amount of Pepecoin moved away from the address during the final days before CoinEx stopped spot trading. The blockchain alone cannot determine how much represented customer withdrawals, exchange wallet management or other transfers.
Alephium’s Pre-Cutoff Balance Fell From 621,000 to About 493,000 ALPH
Alephium was also publicly urging holders to remove assets from CoinEx before the September 29 deadline.
The Alephium team initially said more than 621,000 ALPH remained on CoinEx shortly before the shutdown milestone. In a later final reminder, the project said the amount had fallen to approximately 493,000 ALPH, indicating that more than 100,000 ALPH had left the exchange balance being monitored before spot trading ended.
The 493,000 figure is still a pre-cutoff snapshot. There is not yet enough public evidence to establish how much ALPH remained after 02:00 UTC, how much was withdrawn directly by users or whether any remaining balance has already been sold through CoinEx’s disposal process.
Under CoinEx’s final wind-down notice, users who wanted to retain non-USDT assets in their original form needed to withdraw them before 02:00 UTC on September 29.
For assets with sufficient liquidity on external markets, CoinEx said it would sell remaining holdings in batches and credit users with USDT based on the net proceeds from the actual sales. CoinEx said it would not issue separate announcements for each disposal batch. Assets without suitable external liquidity face a different process, including gradual delisting and the eventual end of wallet maintenance.
The mechanism resembles other cases where exchanges have used automatic conversion into USDT when closing particular markets or balance types, although CoinEx’s situation is broader because the entire exchange business is being wound down.
September 29 Is Not the Final Withdrawal Deadline
The passing of the spot-trading deadline does not mean users can no longer withdraw from CoinEx.
General withdrawals are scheduled to remain available until 02:00 UTC on December 22. The important distinction is that September 29 was effectively the deadline for users who wanted to retain control over the original form of their non-USDT assets. Once the disposal process begins, qualifying balances can instead be sold by the platform and returned as USDT.
CoinEx began its wind-down earlier in September after saying a prolonged cryptocurrency-market downturn, lower industry trading volume and liquidity, rising regulatory requirements, compliance costs and operational uncertainty had made continued operation increasingly difficult. The company has said its reserve ratio exceeds 100% and that user assets are fully backed and available for withdrawal.
Non-spot services were scheduled to end on September 22. The September 29 stage closes spot markets, cancels outstanding spot orders and begins dealing with remaining non-USDT balances. CoinEx Smart Chain and OneSwap were also scheduled to cease operations as part of the same stage.
The 1.65 Billion PEP Balance Is a Data Point, Not a Liquidation Count
The most interesting part of the CoinEx shutdown now becomes measurable.
Before September 29, the question was how many holders would withdraw their tokens before losing the ability to decide when and where those assets were sold. After the cutoff, the question becomes how the balances still associated with CoinEx actually leave the exchange.
The PEP address offers an unusually visible case study, but interpreting it requires caution. A falling exchange-wallet balance is not automatically evidence of liquidation. Coins could be moving to customers, another CoinEx-controlled address or an external venue used to execute sales.
This distinction has mattered in other exchange events. As seen when Bitget moved protection-fund Bitcoin into operational wallets, internal wallet movements can be mistaken for customer withdrawals if analysts look only at headline blockchain transfers.
For CoinEx, identifying automatic liquidation would require more than seeing the tagged PEP balance decline. Destination addresses, known exchange deposit wallets, transaction clustering and subsequent market activity would provide stronger evidence about whether coins were withdrawn, internally reorganized or sent somewhere for sale.
Smaller Tokens Face the Hardest Liquidity Test
The bigger market issue is what happens when a centralized venue needs to dispose of residual positions in assets with relatively shallow external order books.
For Bitcoin or other highly liquid assets, selling a residual customer balance into external markets is unlikely to present the same execution challenge as disposing of a concentrated position in a smaller token. With thin liquidity, the relevant number is not simply how many exchanges list an asset. It is how much real bid depth exists when a sale reaches the market.
CoinEx’s decision to execute disposals in batches can reduce the need to sell everything at once, but users no longer control the timing or execution price. Their economic exposure shifts from holding the original token to receiving whatever net USDT proceeds result from the platform’s sale process.
That is why the PEP and ALPH snapshots matter beyond their individual communities. They provide an opportunity to observe what an orderly exchange shutdown looks like at the asset level rather than simply at the company level.
There is also a wider custody lesson. Customers who withdrew before the cutoff preserved the ability to decide whether to hold or sell their assets elsewhere. Those who left tokens behind remain dependent on the exchange’s processing rules, another example of the access risk when assets remain on centralized platforms, even when the underlying circumstances differ significantly.
The next evidence to watch is therefore not simply whether the known CoinEx PEP wallet reaches zero. More informative signals would be where its remaining 1.65 billion PEP moves, whether Alephium publishes an updated post-cutoff balance, whether transfers can be tied to external-market sales and how quickly affected users report receiving USDT proceeds.
September 29 changes the CoinEx story from a scheduled shutdown into an observable asset-migration and liquidation process. For smaller tokens that still had meaningful balances on the exchange, the next several days should show how much escaped through withdrawals and how much ultimately had to leave through CoinEx’s own disposal mechanism.
Shane Neagle is a financial markets analyst and digital assets journalist specializing in cryptocurrencies, memecoins, prediction markets, and blockchain-based financial systems. His work focuses on market structure, incentive design, liquidity dynamics, and how speculative behavior emerges across decentralized platforms.
He closely covers emerging crypto narratives, including memecoin ecosystems, on-chain activity, and the role of prediction markets in pricing political, economic, and technological outcomes. His analysis examines how capital flows, trader psychology, and platform design interact to create rapid market cycles across Web3 environments.
Alongside digital assets, Shane follows broader fintech and online trading developments, particularly where traditional financial infrastructure intersects with blockchain technology. His research-driven approach emphasizes understanding why markets behave the way they do, rather than short-term price movements, helping readers navigate fast-evolving crypto and speculative markets with clearer context.