Key Takeaways
- Orionx halted withdrawals and is shutting down after a forensic audit revealed a $7M financial shortfall.
- Orionx filed criminal complaints against its founders for allegedly losing user funds in speculative trading.
- Regulators revealed Orionx operated illegally, leaving over 100,000 users with no guarantee of full refunds.
Orionx Halts Customer Withdrawals Amidst $7 Million Fund Deficit
Chile, which had discussed adopting bitcoin as a reserve asset since 2025, is facing what might be the biggest crypto crisis in its history.
Orionx, a Chile-based exchange founded in 2017 with a registered user base of over 100,000 customers that benefited from crypto’s popularity among young users, is winding down operations after discovering a multi-million-dollar hole in its finances. On its site, the company states the decision follows a forensic audit that detected a series of transactions moving over $7 million to wallets outside the company’s control.
The exchange claims that the audit determined that “two of Orionx’s founding partners, Joaquín Díaz and Roberto Zibert—along with other former employees of the company—were allegedly aware of and involved in one or more transactions that gave rise to the asset-liability mismatch.”
In addition, Orionx reported these occurrences to the national Public Prosecutor’s Office to embark on a probe to clarify these movements, and also introduced a criminal complaint against the former executives who were allegedly involved in these actions.
Local media indicates that, according to the legal complaint, the transactions were executed between 2018 and 2021, moving cryptocurrency from the exchange wallets to accounts associated with the company’s email on other platforms.
The audit explained that the funds withdrawn “were used intensively in market operations, generating realized gains and losses, in addition to funding fees, both paid and received, and trading fees associated with the operations.” If true, this means that user funds were used for speculative trading on other platforms.
While this process goes through and responsibilities are being determined, Orionx has paused user withdrawals and stressed that there is no guarantee that users will be able to retrieve 100% of their funds.
The Financial Market Commission (CMF) remarked that Orionx was not authorized to offer cryptocurrency financial services, as its request for authorization to operate was rejected in July, and that the company was operating outside Fintec Law provisions.
Finally, the CMF called on Orionx users to direct their requests to the company and “keep the records that prove their position, such as account statements, transaction records and communications with the entity,” and “exercise the actions they deem appropriate before the courts of law to obtain the restitution of their funds or assets.”
