Troubled crypto exchange JPEX applies for deregistration in Australia

The unlicensed exchange allegedly solicited than $128 million from users before being reprimanded by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.

Troubled Hong Kong crypto exchange JPEX has applied for deregistration in Australia.

According to a filing seen by Cointelegraph on September 20, Jieyi Chen, director of JP-EX Crypto Asset Platform PTY LTD (JPEX), has filed a deregistration application with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). In the filing, JPEX claims that all members of the company agree to the deregistration, the company is no longer carrying business, its assets do not exceed $1000 Australian Dollars, and carries no liabilities.

On September 13, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, the JPEX team allegedly abandoned its corporate booth after Hong Kong police arrested six JPEX employees on charges of fraud for operating an unlicensed crypto exchange. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said on the same day that it received over 1,000 complaints regarding the JPEX platform, with claims of losses amounting to over one billion Hong Kong dollars ($128 million).

As the issue became publicized, JPEX reportedly raised its withdrawal fees to 999 Tether (USDT) to prevent transfers out of the exchange. Previously, JPEX had offered yields as high as 30% per annum on stablecoin staking. 

The website is currently inaccessible at the time of publication. Shortly before its takedown, JPEX published a compensation plan for users, claiming that users would be reimbursed on a “one-to-one” basis with their assets exchanged for stake in the JPEX DAO by September 21. The exchange also wrote that third-party custodians have “malicious frozen” platform assets due to the SFC investigation and has led to an “unprecedented catastrophe.”

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