BKEX has announced a suspension of fund withdrawals from the platform, citing an ongoing money laundering investigation as the reason for its decision. The derivatives exchange made the announcement in a press statement retrieved from its official website earlier today.
According to the statement, funds belonging to users of the platform were used in money laundering, and the company had to suspend withdrawals to work with law enforcement to bring the perpetrators to book.
Users push back; worry about Binance links
The move sparked expected outrage from BKEX users, who questioned the platform’s rights to withhold their money for the crimes of a few. While the company promises to update users consistently on future developments, it has refused to respond to press requests or questions from users since the announcement.
With BKEX having some links to Binance in its early days, users can’t help but see a link between Binance’s challenges and BKEX’s current money laundering investigation. Binance is currently in the midst of several lawsuits worldwide, with most accusing the world’s largest crypto exchange of providing financial services to criminals.
The wording of BKEX’s statement makes it easy to draw a parallel between Binance’s legal battles and what’s currently brewing at the company. If there’s truly a correlation, BKEX may be in for a long and uninteresting ride.
BKEX promises to resume normal operations
In the press statement, BKEX promised to work hard to ensure the exchange starts working normally but failed to provide a timeline.
“BKEX team will fully cooperate with the regulatory investigation and do its best to restore the normal operation of the exchange,” the company said in the statement.
Despite the announcement and subsequent pushback, the platform’s trading volume appears to have risen by 64% over the last 24 hours to $495 million. However, researchers opine that the platform inflates its trading volume to rank higher on data aggregator platforms like CoinGecko, suggesting that the trading volume doesn’t represent the platform’s actual popularity.
