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by Sarah Connor
Three CEXs shut in a week: is the model dying, or is this just a cull?
BitMart announced it is shutting down, days after BitMEX and AscendEx did the same. Is centralized crypto exchange structurally on its way out, or is this ordinary bear-market attrition that is killing DeFi protocols at the same rate?
The chain of the argument
Wu Blockchain broke the news: BitMart suspended new registrations, deposits and new orders on July 26 and will cease all trading by August 26, the second centralized exchange shutdown in a week, after BitMEX, and the third named platform this year counting AscendEx. Wu Blockchain's own thread supplied the backstory: BitMart raised at a $300M valuation in 2021 on the strength of altcoin listings, then lost nearly $200M to a hack at the end of that year and never fully recovered operationally. Simon Dedic read the pattern as terminal for the whole CEX category: an "extraction model" that depends on a constant supply of new users to exploit, now running dry in a bear market. Ruslan Khairullin pushed back on the framing rather than the fact: volume isn't rotating cleanly from CEX to DEX, it's consolidating to the top five exchanges of either kind, with everything mid-tier getting squeezed out regardless of architecture. Ash then posted the fuller ledger: alongside the CEX closures, a dozen DeFi protocols wound down in the same stretch, which undercuts any story where "onchain" is automatically the safe side of this. Justin Wu framed it as cycle, not architecture: every exchange looks unstoppable in a bull market, and it's only the downturn that tests which businesses were actually solid.
Volume is going straight to top 5 CEXes or onchain perp DEXes. Nothing in between makes it out.
named CEXs have shut down in 2026: BitMEX, BitMart, AscendEx
Wu BlockchainDeFi protocols also wound down this year, per Ash's list: Zapper, Odos, Radiant, Goldfinch and more
@ahboyashthe 2021 hack that crippled BitMart and set up this shutdown
Wu BlockchainFigures as reported in the linked threads; TT has not independently verified BitMart's internal financials or the completeness of the DeFi shutdown list.
The two sides
For — the CEX model is structurally done
Dedic and the onchain camp
The extraction model has a fatal flaw: it needs a steady supply of victims. When those dry up, so does the business. A brutal bear market is actually healing the market.
@sjdedicProjects only list on a centralized exchange because they pay for it. When the exchange goes down, the paid listing (and any funds sitting on it) goes down too. Don't underestimate the power of DEX.
@KirjakulovEverything is tradable on a Solana DEX now. There's no need for CEXs.
@CryptoCurbMost exchanges aren't even necessary, and people are realizing that very quickly.
@TheArsonDragonAgainst — it's a cull, not a CEX death spiral
Khairullin, Ash & the skeptics
Volume is going straight to the top five CEXes or onchain perp DEXes; nothing in between makes it out. More tier-10 exchanges will shut before Q4. It's a barbell, not a rotation to DEX.
@Rus_KhairullinAlongside the CEX closures, a dozen DeFi protocols shut down this year too: Zapper, Odos, Radiant, Goldfinch, Step Finance and more. "Onchain" hasn't been immune to the same shakeout.
@ahboyashEvery exchange looks unstoppable in a bull market: volume booming, listings everywhere, users arriving. You only find out how strong the business really is when the cycle turns. BitMart just reached that point.
@hackapreneurFewer exchanges people can actually trust is the real fix here; crypto doesn't need more exchanges, of either kind, it needs fewer bad ones.
@FityethThe exchange, in their words
Why this is an investment question, not gossip
Strip away the headline and there's a real structural question: does a wave of CEX shutdowns mean capital should rotate toward DEXs, or does it mean sub-scale platforms of any kind, centralized or onchain, are the actual thing to avoid right now? The "CEX is dying" read is the easier story to tell, but it doesn't survive contact with Ash's list: DeFi protocols with real onchain distribution shut down in the same window, for the same underlying reason: weak unit economics once free-spending users left. The variable that predicted survival wasn't CEX versus DEX. It was scale, and whether the platform had a business model that worked without a constant inflow of new retail.
The TT desk thoughts
Treat this as a scale story, not an architecture story. Concentrate exchange exposure in the handful of platforms with real depth on each side, the top-tier CEXs and the leading onchain perp DEXs, and treat any balance sitting on a tier-two or tier-three venue as withdrawal risk right now, regardless of whether it's centralized or onchain. "It's a DEX" is not a safety property by itself; Zapper, Odos and Radiant prove that. If you're holding funds on a platform outside the top handful by volume on its own side of the market, the base rate from this week says move them, not wait for a headline to confirm it.
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