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Points of Focus
- Orionx shut down after a $7M custody gap sat undetected for roughly five years
- Chile’s regulator rejected Orionx’s license months before the collapse
- Tether removed its own investment announcement and hasn’t commented.
Chilean crypto exchange Orionx announced permanent closure on September 3, freezing all withdrawals.
Tether-Backed Chilean Crypto Exchange Orionx Shuts Down After $7M+ Asset Shortfall
Chilean crypto exchange Orionx has begun a permanent shutdown after a forensic audit found that more than $7 million in customer assets had been transferred to wallets outside the company’s… pic.twitter.com/DtmTz74XxB
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 6, 2026
A forensic audit found more than $7 million in customer assets had moved to wallets outside the company’s control. The unauthorized transfers reportedly happened between 2018 and 2021. That means the gap sat undetected for roughly five years before anyone noticed.
A $7M gap sat undetected inside Orionx for years
Orionx’s chief operating officer, Thomas Mac Millan, flagged inconsistencies between the platform’s internal account records and its actual custody wallet balances on August 27. The company then brought in independent forensic specialists to investigate further.
The shortfall spans Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Polygon. More than 100,000 registered accounts are affected. Orionx has filed a criminal complaint with Chile’s Public Prosecutor’s Office and a separate lawsuit against co-founders Joaquín Díaz and Roberto Zibert. Both have rejected the accusations.
Orionx has not disclosed the specific wallet addresses, transaction hashes, or a per-asset breakdown behind the $7 million figure. Independent researchers can’t yet verify the full calculation on-chain.
Chile’s regulator rejected Orionx months before it collapsed
Chile’s Financial Market Commission added a detail on September 4 that changes how this story should be read. Orionx was never registered or authorized under the country’s Fintech Law. Its licensing application was rejected on June 19, just over two months before the shortfall surfaced.
The regulator also stated it neither supervises Orionx’s wind-down nor can compel repayment to affected users. An exchange the country’s own financial regulator had already declined to license kept operating long enough to lose track of a multi-year custody gap. Now that same regulator has no formal role in getting anyone’s funds back.
Tether removed its Orionx investment page and stayed silent
Tether led Orionx’s Series A funding round in June 2025 as its sole investor, just 15 months before the collapse. Tether has since removed that investment announcement from its website. It has issued no public statement addressing the shutdown.
That removal is a fact worth reporting on its own terms, not a confirmed admission of anything specific. What it does raise, without answering, is a question about how thoroughly Tether reviewed Orionx’s custody practices before backing it exclusively, and why an investor would quietly retreat rather than address a portfolio company’s collapse directly.
What happens to Orionx customer funds now
Orionx has outlined a five-stage closure and asset-restitution process. Distribution is planned on an equal and proportional basis rather than first-come, first-served, meaning earlier withdrawal requests won’t receive priority over later ones. Orionx itself has said full repayment isn’t guaranteed.
For the more than 100,000 affected account holders, that leaves the outcome genuinely uncertain. No regulator has the authority to intervene, no confirmation yet of the exact scope of the shortfall, and an investor with direct knowledge of the company’s operations that has so far chosen silence over explanation.
What Orionx’s collapse leaves unanswered
Several questions remain open.
Orionx hasn’t published the on-chain evidence that would let outside researchers independently confirm the $7 million figure. Tether hasn’t explained what its own due diligence process looked like before it became Orionx’s exclusive Series A investor or why it removed the announcement rather than commenting on the outcome. And Chile’s regulator, having already rejected Orionx’s license once, has now confirmed it has no power to help the customers left waiting for their funds.
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