OpenGradient co-founder and CEO Matthew Wang has publicly alleged that his market-making team's funds are stuck on BitMart and cannot be withdrawn, going further to question whether the exchange is insolvent as it winds down its trading operations. Wang's allegations, along with BitMart's response, were compiled in a widely-shared thread documenting both sides of the dispute.
Wang specifically flagged the timing of BitMart's actions as suspicious, noting the exchange had encouraged users to lock up their assets shortly before announcing the shutdown — a sequence he called "shocking" and suggested may have functioned as "a play for liquidity" rather than a genuine product offering. BitMart has not directly addressed Wang's specific claims about frozen market-making funds.
BitMart's response so far
BitMart founder Sheldon Xia addressed the broader concerns publicly on August 8, saying the exchange had not fled and would not do so. Xia characterized the current process as an orderly wind-down, with the core team conducting an asset inventory and consolidating holdings while keeping trading systems operational. He also denied any misappropriation of customer assets, though he did not provide detailed figures to substantiate the exchange's solvency.
Wang's allegations remain unverified, and there is no independently confirmed evidence at this stage that BitMart lacks sufficient assets to cover customer and counterparty obligations. Exchange wind-downs frequently produce exactly this kind of dispute — withdrawal friction that could reflect either genuine operational strain or simply the slower processing that comes with consolidating positions during a shutdown.
A pattern market makers watch closely
For professional trading desks like Wang's, frozen withdrawals during an exchange wind-down are a familiar warning sign, since market makers typically maintain large working balances on exchanges specifically to provide liquidity — balances that become the first casualty if an exchange's solvency is genuinely compromised.
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Until BitMart provides more transparency around its reserves or completes its wind-down, the dispute is likely to remain a test case for how much scrutiny exchange shutdowns draw from the trading firms most exposed to them.
