Crypto exchange CoinEx said it is winding down operations, citing a prolonged crypto market downturn, sinking trading volumes and liquidity, and rising regulatory and compliance costs, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

As part of the wind-down, CoinEx will halt new user registrations, referral commissions and other rewards. Futures contracts will enter a “Reduce-Only” mode. CoinEx will also stop accepting new orders or subscriptions across its fiat, margin trading, lending, earn, staking and strategic trading services.

“After much reflection, I have come to accept a hard truth. CoinEx did not become one of the industry’s leading exchanges, and the security and compliance risks of running a crypto exchange have become increasingly difficult to contain,” CoinEx CEO Haipo Yang said in a post on X.

The closure adds to a wave of crypto exchanges that have ceased operations this year for similar reasons, including BitMart, BitMEX and AscendEX.

From Sept. 22, CoinEx will discontinue all non-spot services and onchain deposits, with the exception of CET deposits.

From Sept. 29, all spot trading services will be discontinued, and non-USDT assets will be processed.

From Dec. 22, the withdrawal period will end, and the platform will cease operations. Any unwithdrawn USDT will be transferred to an independent custodian, which will incur a monthly custody fee.

CoinEx will also buy back CET at its initial listing price of 0.005 USDT per token, a slightly higher price than it was on Monday before the announcement.

Related: BitMEX to shut down after 11 years in crypto derivatives

CoinEx Wallet and CoinEx Vault will remain fully operational, as they operate independently of the exchange.

CoinEx was launched in December 2017 by crypto mining pool ViaBTC. The crypto exchange is ranked 33rd with $58 million in 24-hour trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap.

“To every user who has trusted and supported us over the past nine years, thank you for your trust and support in the past nine years. Thank you for being part of our journey.”

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Balancer, one of the best-known decentralized exchanges built on automated market makers, has proposed winding down its protocol after a post-exploit restructuring failed to restore enough revenue to sustain growth. Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt said he underestimated how long the fallout from a $128 million exploit in November would continue to suppress user traction.

The plan, posted on Balancer’s governance forum on Monday by Hardt, calls for a phased shutdown and the distribution of a remaining treasury currently valued at more than $9 million to BAL tokenholders. The proposal follows Balancer Labs’ earlier decision to shut down in March, when the team moved to a leaner operating structure while still supporting the protocol.

Key takeaways

• Balancer’s governance proposal would transition the protocol into a withdrawal-focused end state and wind down the DAO.
• The plan attributes weak revenue recovery to continued adoption drag after a November $128 million exploit tied to legacy v2 stable pools.
• Balancer Labs previously restructured to cut costs, but Hardt said the revenue side of that strategy fell short—v2 revenue declined and v3 did not replace it.
• The treasury distribution is expected to begin in May 2027, with additional rounds of payouts and a final sweep months later.
• BAL holders will vote on the wind-down via a snapshot window scheduled for Sept. 25–29.

Why Balancer is moving toward a shutdown

Hardt’s proposal positions the wind-down as the next step after a cost-focused overhaul. According to Hardt, Balancer Labs’ March shutdown and leaner follow-on structure achieved the promised operational changes—reducing costs and delivering certain products to tokenholders—but did not generate sufficient revenue to justify continuing full development and business support.

In a statement on X, Hardt argued that “most of the protocol’s revenue still comes from v2,” while v3 revenue had not grown enough to fill the gap. He summarized the outcome as a product that worked but did not “sell enough,” framing the issue less as a technical failure and more as an economic one.

Hardt tied the revenue weakness to the long tail of the November exploit. Data from DefiLlama shows Balancer’s monthly protocol revenue dropping sharply following the incident: it fell to $371,000 in November from $1.13 million in October. DefiLlama data also indicates revenue continued to trend downward into 2026, with August revenue at $56,781.

While the exploit impacted legacy v2 composable stable pools, Hardt emphasized that the incident’s name and reputational impact still carried into v3 discussions and made it harder to build traction. In his governance forum post, he said the November 2025 exploit “hit legacy v2 pools,” noting that v3 uses a different architecture—but added that he underestimated “how much the exploit would continue to limit adoption.”

How the proposed wind-down would work

The governance document outlines a staged approach beginning next month. It would end new business development immediately, and it would give liquidity providers until Oct. 30 to prepare to exit the protocol. In the meantime, the plan distinguishes between pools based on whether they can be paused.

Pools that can be paused would be moved to withdrawal-only. For pools that cannot be paused, they would continue operating, but—where contracts allow it—the protocol fee would be set to zero. This structure aims to preserve user exit paths while reducing ongoing protocol economics that could further drain the treasury.

From Nov. 1, Balancer would run only the minimal infrastructure needed to support withdrawals, and the DAO would be wound down with a smaller team handling the transition. The proposal sets aside up to $400,000 specifically for the wind-down process.

Treasury distribution plan for BAL holders

Under the proposal, BAL holders would receive the remaining treasury on a pro-rata basis. The first distribution is scheduled for May 2027, at which point holders would burn their BAL in exchange for their share of the treasury assets.

Hardt’s plan also includes follow-on steps: a second distribution would return unspent wind-down funds and unclaimed assets from the first distribution, followed by a “final sweep” six months later. The governance process also anticipates operational wind-down costs, which would be drawn from the allocated budget.

Hardt argued against delaying the shutdown, saying that continuing on the current path would spend treasury resources without changing the eventual outcome. In his view, the central question is whether the remaining treasury stays substantial enough to reach holders, rather than being depleted by additional costs on a timeline that has already been tested.

Governance vote and what happens if it fails

The wind-down requires approval from BAL holders. The proposal specifies a snapshot vote scheduled for Sept. 25 to 29. If tokenholders reject the plan, Balancer would remain on its existing operating framework, meaning the protocol would not transition into the withdrawal-focused shutdown described in the proposal.

Until that vote, the key uncertainty for market participants is whether the governance process reflects tokenholder appetite for returning remaining assets sooner—or confidence that revenue recovery can be achieved without winding down.

With Balancer’s revenue already showing a prolonged decline after the November exploit, traders, liquidity providers, and developers will likely watch the snapshot outcome closely—not only for the immediate operational changes, but for what the decision signals about how DeFi protocols decide between continued restructuring versus full decommissioning when adoption fails to rebound.

It wasn’t just gender that set Hargitay apart from those predecessors, though. She was also the Emmys’ first emcee not known primarily for her comedy work since 2008, when the five first-ever nominees in a new reality-TV-hosting category, including Ryan Seacrest and Heidi Klum, delivered what critics agreed was one of the worst ceremonies in history. Hargitay is, of course, synonymous with Olivia Benson, the heroic sex-crimes investigator she has portrayed in NBC’s Law & Order: SVU since its 1999 premiere. What casual fans might not have known is that she trained with legendary improv troupe the Groundlings and appeared in sitcoms like Seinfeld; “all I wanted to be was you,” she told Amy Poehler on the latter’s podcast, Good Hang. Hargitay also went into the gig with lots of goodwill from audiences inside the Peacock Theater and at home. Not only is she an advocate for survivors of sexual violence, on screen and off; she’s also in the midst of a pop-culture renaissance, having won two Emmys for the documentary she directed about her famous mom, Jayne Mansfield, conquered the one-woman play Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway, and endeared herself to Knicks fans as a stalwart supporter on the sidelines of this year’s NBA Finals. In light of all this, Variety dubbed her “a national best friend.”

The U.S. Senate is set to hold a crucial procedural vote Tuesday on the CLARITY Act, a major piece of proposed legislation aimed at reshaping how the federal government regulates digital assets and clarifying how crypto fits within existing securities and commodities frameworks.

While recent talks around ethics restrictions for public officials appear to have moved the bill closer to action—after President Donald Trump agreed to much of a bipartisan proposal—opposition from a coalition of state attorneys general is threatening to complicate momentum. In a letter led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, 18 state AGs urged senators to reject the bill, arguing that the compromise does not fully address concerns about undermining state oversight of crypto-related misconduct.

Key takeaways

• The CLARITY Act faces a Senate procedural vote Tuesday that will decide whether it advances to full Senate debate.
• Trump’s reported agreement to roughly “80%” of a bipartisan ethics proposal would tighten disclosure and divestment rules for officials with significant crypto interests.
• A coalition of 18 state attorneys general, led by Letitia James, says the bill’s language could weaken states’ ability to pursue crypto fraud and misconduct.
• Despite changes that would include state AG involvement in enforcement of ethics restrictions, the AGs contend other provisions may still restrict state police powers.

A Senate procedural hurdle looms

Tuesday’s vote is not a final decision on the merits of the CLARITY Act, but it is an important gatekeeping step. As reported by Cointelegraph, Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion on the bill last month after lawmakers did not move it forward before leaving Washington for the August recess.

In practical terms, the procedural vote will determine whether senators can proceed to debate. For market participants and legal stakeholders, that matters because the CLARITY Act is designed to establish a clearer federal structure for digital asset regulation—especially by delineating when assets are treated under securities law versus commodities law—and by defining the roles of the SEC and the CFTC.

Trump’s reported ethics deal reshapes the bill

The latest complication comes from the intersection of ethics rules and enforcement authority. According to the Associated Press, Trump agreed to about “80%” of a proposal from Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, citing a senior GOP aide.

The bill already barred federally elected officials, their spouses, and federal judges from issuing digital assets. The reported compromise would increase the requirements for officials with a “significant” financial interest in a crypto issuer—requiring divestment or placement of that interest into a blind trust.

It also expands the practical enforcement footprint by giving state attorneys general a role in enforcing the new ethics restrictions. The changes are intended to address concerns raised by Democrats and Tillis, who argued earlier provisions were not stringent enough to handle potential conflicts involving Trump’s crypto holdings and business interests.

Crypto in America, a publication co-hosted by Eleanor Terrett, described the weekend developments as sparking renewed optimism in parts of the industry, framing the revised package as Republicans’ effort to move Democrats toward agreement ahead of Tuesday’s procedural vote.

State attorneys general oppose—citing enforcement and federal-state tension

Even as ethics provisions appear to have gained ground, a coordinated state-level challenge has emerged. In a letter to Senate Banking Committee leaders, 18 state attorneys general—led by Letitia James—argued that the CLARITY Act could make it harder for states to take action against crypto companies accused of fraud or other misconduct.

The AG coalition warned that while the bill reserves “certain powers” for states to prosecute fraud, the letter claims the language is ambiguous and unclear in ways that could allow challenges to states’ police powers or limit states’ ability to combat what the signatories characterize as a “scam epidemic.”

They also argue the structure of enforcement is not balanced. Although the updated bill would give state attorneys general a role in enforcing the new ethics restrictions, the AGs contend other provisions could still weaken their broader authority over crypto-related wrongdoing.

For legislators and watchers of U.S. regulatory federalism, this is the core tension: a bill designed to bring order to federal oversight and define agency responsibilities may still be perceived as constraining state prosecutors. The AG letter suggests that even modest statutory adjustments can create new litigation risks or narrowing interpretations—issues that can materially affect how quickly and effectively states can pursue alleged misconduct.

The letter is the clearest signal so far that the opposition is not only political but also legal and jurisdictional, setting up a potential debate over where responsibility should sit when both federal agencies and state officials can pursue different—but sometimes overlapping—enforcement theories.

The letter from the AG coalition

Why the CLARITY Act matters beyond the ethics fight

While Tuesday’s vote will be heavily discussed through the lens of ethics rules, the CLARITY Act’s significance extends well beyond that. The bill is widely described as a landmark effort to set a federal market structure for digital assets, including clearer guidance on the SEC versus CFTC divide.

That regulatory clarity is a key reason the legislation has been closely watched by market participants. For exchanges, custodians, token issuers, and financial institutions, regulatory uncertainty can directly translate into compliance costs, delayed product launches, and increased legal risk. For consumers, clearer rules are also intended to reduce the gray area that can be exploited by bad actors.

However, the state AGs’ concerns highlight a practical reality: even when federal law aims to coordinate oversight, states still play a crucial role in enforcing fraud and consumer protection. If the CLARITY Act’s drafting leaves room for arguments that states’ enforcement authority is curtailed or constrained, it could create a parallel track of legal fights—potentially slowing enforcement even if the bill ultimately advances.

As a result, investors and builders should not interpret Tuesday’s procedural vote as only a referendum on ethics provisions. It is also a test of whether senators are willing to move forward on a comprehensive framework while leaving unresolved questions about federal-state enforcement boundaries.

What to watch next is whether the Senate procedural vote clears Tuesday and, if it does, whether state AG objections shape the debate during full chamber consideration—particularly around how the bill’s provisions could affect states’ ability to pursue crypto fraud cases while the SEC and CFTC roles are being clarified.

Balancer, a decentralized exchange and automated market maker, has proposed winding down the protocol after its post-exploit restructuring failed to generate enough revenue, with its leader saying he underestimated how much a $128 million exploit in November would continue to weigh on adoption. 

The proposal was authored by Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt and published on the Balancer governance forum on Monday. It calls for an orderly wind-down of the protocol and the distribution of its remaining treasury, currently worth more than $9 million, to BAL tokenholders.

The proposal comes after Balancer Labs shut down in March, when executives opted to continue operating the protocol under a leaner structure. Hardt said Monday that while the restructuring succeeded in cutting costs and delivering the products promised to tokenholders, the revenue side of the plan fell short, echoing profitability challenges faced by several other DeFi protocols this year. 

“What did not come was enough revenue. Most of the protocol’s revenue still comes from v2, and v3 revenue has not grown to replace it. The product worked. It did not sell enough,” Hardt said in a statement on X. 

Data from DefiLlama show that Balancer’s monthly protocol revenue fell to $371,000 in November from $1.13 million in October after an exploit affecting composable stable pools on its legacy v2 protocol. Revenue continued to trend downward into 2026, with August revenue at just $56,781. 

“The November 2025 exploit hit legacy v2 pools. v3 is a different architecture, but the event followed the name into every conversation since and made traction harder to build,” Hardt said on the Balancer forum. 

“I underestimated how much the exploit would continue to limit adoption,” he added in a separate post on X. 

Balancer wind-down proposal

Under the proposal, Balancer would begin a phased shutdown next month, with new business development ending and liquidity providers given until Oct. 30 to prepare to exit the protocol. Meanwhile, pools that can be paused would move to withdrawal-only, while those that can’t be paused will continue working but have the protocol fee set to zero where contracts allow it. 

From Nov. 1, Balancer would operate only the minimal infrastructure needed to support withdrawals, and the DAO would be wound down, with a small team to manage the transition. The proposal sets aside up to $400,000 for the wind-down process.

Related: Balancer Labs shuts down 4 months after $100M+ exploit, protocol to continue

BAL holders would receive the remaining treasury on a pro-rata basis, with the first distribution scheduled for May 2027, when holders would burn their BAL in exchange for their share of the treasury assets. 

A second distribution would return unspent wind-down funds, unclaimed assets from the first distribution, followed by a “final sweep” six months later. 

Hardt said delaying a wind-down would eat into the treasury without changing the ultimate outcome.  

“Continuing on the current path spends the treasury to arrive at the same place later. That treasury belongs to BAL holders. The question is whether what remains reaches holders while it is still substantial, or is spent first on a path that has already been tried,” he said. 

The wind-down requires approval from BAL holders, with a snapshot vote scheduled for Sept. 25 to 29. A rejection would leave Balance’s existing operating framework in place. 

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S&P Global has backed Kaiko with a strategic investment that extends the Paris-based crypto market data provider’s Series B round to $110 million. The funding is intended to deepen Kaiko’s digital asset market data services while accelerating its expansion into onchain infrastructure for tokenized finance.

Alongside Kaiko, the round includes major financial and market participants such as BNP Paribas, Bpifrance, Broadridge, Nasdaq Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, and Coinbase Ventures, as well as trading and capital markets groups including DRW Venture Capital and Susquehanna Private Equity Investments. Technology and blockchain ecosystem investors also participated, including Stellar.

Key takeaways

• S&P Global’s investment lifts Kaiko’s Series B total to $110 million, signaling growing demand for institutional-grade digital asset and tokenized-market data.
• Kaiko says the capital will support both its established digital asset pricing and its expansion into onchain data services for tokenized Treasuries, money market funds, equities, and bonds.
• Participating investors will join a Kaiko-led working group focused on data and infrastructure for tokenized financial products—an effort aimed at aligning standards across institutions.
• The funding arrives as U.S. market operators and clearing infrastructure firms push further into blockchain-based settlement and tokenized trading pilots.

Kaiko’s Series B aims at tokenized-market data, not just crypto pricing

Kaiko positioned the round as a continuation of its strategy to build data infrastructure that can serve both conventional institutional markets and onchain finance. The company said it will use the investment to strengthen its core digital asset market data business, while also expanding into “onchain financial infrastructure” use cases.

Specifically, Kaiko’s roadmap includes data services for tokenized Treasury bills, money market funds, and tokenized equities and bonds. For institutional participants, the practical challenge is rarely the tokenization itself—it’s reliable market data, pricing, reference data, and analytics that can be consistently used across platforms and settlement environments.

The investment is also framed as enabling a broader industry push. Kaiko said the participating investors will contribute to an industry working group led by the company, focused on developing data and infrastructure for tokenized financial products. That emphasis matters because tokenized-market adoption tends to stall when different institutions and venues rely on incompatible data formats, identification systems, and operational assumptions.

Wall Street’s tokenization push accelerates alongside institutional data needs

Kaiko’s funding lands during a period when major market operators and financial infrastructure firms are moving from experimentation toward operational implementations of blockchain-enabled workflows, including trading, settlement, and collateral management.

Earlier this year, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)—the parent of the New York Stock Exchange—signed an agreement with Securitize to develop infrastructure and standards for tokenized securities. The deal builds on ICE’s earlier plan for a tokenized securities trading platform intended to support 24/7 trading and instant settlement.

In the same timeframe, Nasdaq received SEC approval to pilot trading tokenized stocks and ETFs alongside traditional securities. Nasdaq also partnered with Kraken’s parent, Payward, to develop infrastructure intended to connect regulated equity markets with onchain tokenized equities.

Infrastructure builders are also testing production-like workflows. In July, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) conducted production trades using DTC-tokenized assets with more than 30 financial firms ahead of a planned October launch of a tokenization service. DTCC describes DTC as providing custody and asset servicing for $114 trillion in securities, underlining the scale at which tokenization is being explored.

Regulators are watching 24/7 equity trading readiness

As tokenized-market infrastructure progresses, U.S. regulators are turning attention to whether markets can operate effectively beyond standard hours. The SEC has scheduled a roundtable for Sept. 17 focused on preparations for 24-hour trading in U.S. equities.

The agenda includes market readiness, operational resilience, investor protections, and potential future expansion toward 24/7 trading. For market participants, that kind of regulatory attention tends to influence how quickly tokenization efforts translate into larger-scale adoption—especially where operational controls, disclosure, and investor protections must fit new trading and settlement timelines.

Kaiko’s positioning is closely aligned with these concerns. As markets move toward faster and more continuous settlement, institutions need consistent data to support monitoring, reporting, risk management, and post-trade reconciliation across both traditional and onchain environments.

Kaiko’s acquisitions and partnerships show a clear institutional push

The Series B extension follows several recent moves by Kaiko aimed at strengthening its institutional footprint. In May, Kaiko acquired Cometh, described as a MiCA-regulated onchain infrastructure provider. In June, Kaiko also acquired Amberdata, a U.S.-based digital asset data firm.

Earlier, Kaiko said it partnered with Bloomberg in February to bring licensed financial data “onchain,” reflecting an intent to integrate established market data sources into distributed systems. These steps help explain why a larger institutional investor base is participating now: the company is building a data stack designed to serve more than one class of market—spanning crypto and tokenized traditional assets.

Kaiko CEO Ambre Soubiran said the investors cover multiple areas tied to digital asset markets, including pricing, trading, capital allocation, and blockchain development. She described them as partners in building infrastructure for institutional onchain finance, a signal that the firm’s current funding is meant to be more than financial support—it is also intended to connect Kaiko with decision-makers responsible for implementing institutional-grade tokenized workflows.

What to watch next is whether Kaiko’s working group efforts produce concrete interoperability and data standardization outcomes for tokenized financial products—and how regulators’ focus on 24-hour equity trading readiness shapes timelines for real-world adoption.