CoinEx

CoinEx is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange that launched in December 2017 as part of the ViaBTC Group, a mining and blockchain infrastructure company founded by Haipo Yang. Yang is an early Bitcoin Cash advocate who helped architect the Bitcoin Cash hard fork. From its inception, CoinEx positioned itself toward altcoin accessibility and now lists more than 1,300 tokens across over 1,900 trading pairs. The exchange reports serving more than 10 million registered users across 200+ countries and is incorporated in the Seychelles.

Trading Products

CoinEx offers four primary trading environments. Spot trading covers the bulk of the token catalog at a base fee of 0.20% for both makers and takers. Margin trading enables leveraged positions within spot markets. Futures trading provides perpetual contracts with up to 100x leverage, priced in USDT or USDC for linear contracts and in the underlying asset for inverse contracts, with fees of 0.03% for makers and 0.05% for takers. A grid trading bot automates buy-low-sell-high strategies within user-defined price bands.

A feature called OnChain trading is particularly relevant to Solana users. It allows CoinEx account holders to trade tokens listed on decentralized exchanges on Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain directly from the CoinEx interface, without needing an external wallet or bridging funds. This is a CEX wrapper around DEX liquidity, letting users access long-tail Solana tokens alongside their centralized trading activity from a single account.

The platform also includes CoinEx Earn, which aggregates flexible savings, fixed-term deposits, staking, and dual-investment products. Solana staking through CoinEx yields approximately 4.9% APY, with the exchange charging a 10% service fee on rewards. CoinEx Pay is a payment product that allows crypto transfers between users and merchants.

CET Token

CoinEx's native exchange token is CET (CoinEx Token). Its total fixed supply is 2.8 billion CET. CET originally launched on the ERC-20 standard before becoming the primary gas currency for CoinEx Smart Chain.

On the exchange, paying spot trading fees in CET provides a 20% fee reduction. Holding CET also contributes toward VIP tier advancement. CET staking through CoinEx Earn carries zero service fee, unlike other staked assets where CoinEx charges 10%.

CoinEx runs a deflationary burn program: 20% of daily trading fee income is used monthly to repurchase and permanently burn CET, reducing circulating supply over time. The 2024 annual recap noted continued growth in CET utility through fee discounts, staking, and new ecosystem applications including OneSwap Pump.

CoinEx Smart Chain

CoinEx Smart Chain (CSC) is an EVM-compatible proof-of-stake blockchain developed alongside the exchange. Its source code is a fork of go-ethereum, available on GitHub under the coinex-smart-chain organization. CSC supports up to 101 active validators, ranked by staked CET, and uses CET as the gas token. Block times are faster than Ethereum mainnet, and transaction fees are low relative to Ethereum.

EVM compatibility means that Solidity smart contracts and Ethereum tooling work on CSC without modification, and the chain is listed on thirdweb's chain registry with documented RPC endpoints.

OneSwap is the primary decentralized exchange built on CSC. In 2024, the team launched OneSwap Pump, a memecoin creation and trading platform modeled on the format popularized by Pump.fun on Solana. Tokens created on OneSwap Pump are immediately tradeable and auto-list on OneSwap when they reach a market cap of 100,000 CET.

CSC does not interact directly with the Solana network; it is a separate blockchain.

Security History and Current Protections

In September 2023, CoinEx suffered a major breach when private keys to several hot wallets were compromised. On-chain analytics by Elliptic and other firms linked the stolen funds to North Korea's Lazarus Group, tracing flows to addresses previously used in the Stake.com hack and other Lazarus operations. Total losses were approximately 70 million dollars across ETH, TRX, BTC, BNB, and other assets. CoinEx suspended deposits and withdrawals, coordinated with law enforcement, and committed to compensating all affected users from its own reserves.

Following the breach, CoinEx rebuilt its security architecture. The exchange enforces strict cold and hot wallet separation with multi-signature authorization required for large withdrawals. It maintains a Shield Fund, capitalized by 10% of all trading fees, which held over 33 million dollars as of mid-2025. This fund exists specifically to cover losses from any future security incident. CoinEx publishes monthly Proof of Reserves reports claiming a 100% reserve ratio across major assets, verified using Merkle tree proofs. The exchange also works with SlowMist for ongoing security assessments.

API and Developer Access

The CoinEx API v2, documented at docs.coinex.com, supports REST over HTTPS and WebSocket connections for streaming data. Endpoints cover spot and futures order placement, batch orders, order status, position management, market depth, K-line data, funding rates, account balances, transfers, withdrawals, and subaccount management. Sample code is provided for multiple programming languages. The API serves both algorithmic retail traders and institutional participants through a dedicated market maker program with volume-based fee tiers.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

CoinEx is not a Solana-native protocol, but it provides several meaningful on-ramps and integrations for the Solana ecosystem. SOL is listed for spot trading, staking, purchase, and deposit and withdrawal with a 0.007 SOL withdrawal fee. The OnChain trading feature gives CoinEx users direct access to Solana DEX token markets from within the exchange, broadening the reach of Solana's long-tail token ecosystem to an established user base. Solana staking is available through CoinEx Earn at approximately 4.9% APY. CoinEx's blog and feed content also covers Solana-focused news and analysis.