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Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)

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last updated 2026-09-13

Summary

Sheldon Xia is the founder of BitMart, a cryptocurrency exchange he established in 2017 that served over 13 million users across 180 countries before announcing a wind-down on July 26, 2026. Since that announcement, Xia has become the primary target of accountability demands from users and employees who allege frozen withdrawals and unpaid salaries, while Xia has publicly dismissed calls for a third-party audit and wallet disclosure as fabricated rumors. As of August 20, 2026, Xia has released no proof-of-reserves, no repayment plan, and no independent accounting of user funds, while on-chain data tracked by Arkham Intelligence shows a significant decline in wallet balances attributable to exchange-linked addresses.

Connected Entities

7 entities · 60 linked investigations
Organizations
□Sheldon Xia22□Kraken62□Ethereum□Binance□Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)□ZachXBT
Exchanges
△BitMart Exchange — Insolvency Claims and Frozen Withdrawals (August 2026)0
Relationships
  • ZachXBT→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
  • ZachXBT→mentioned with→Kraken(60%)
  • ZachXBT→mentioned with→Binance(60%)
  • Binance→mentioned with→Ethereum(65%)
  • BitMart Exchange — Insolvency Claims and Frozen Withdrawals (August 2026)→mentioned with→Binance(60%)
  • BitMart Exchange — Insolvency Claims and Frozen Withdrawals (August 2026)→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
  • Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)→mentioned with→Ethereum(60%)
  • Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)→mentioned with→Binance(65%)
  • Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)→mentioned with→ZachXBT(70%)
  • Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)→mentioned with→Kraken(60%)
  • + 5 more
Also appears in
LiFi Protocol·38Zcash·50Cosmos Hub·58Kraken·62Usual USD0·42MemeCore·22WOO X·38Sheldon Xia·22BitMart Exchange Shutdown 2026·9Nexera·32

Connected Through

5 shared actors · 638 investigations

Distinct actors this investigation shares with others — holders, traders, and named parties. Shared infrastructure (exchanges, pools) is excluded.

Have evidence about Sheldon Xia (BitMart Founder)?

Timeline(14 events)

2013

Sheldon Xia involved in launch of DSCoin and operation of dscoin.org exchange, among early Chinese crypto market participants.

BitMart / WuBlockchain Medium

2017

Sheldon Xia founds BitMart after completing MS in Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Crunchbase / GlobeNewswire

4 December 2021

BitMart suffers hot-wallet security breach; hackers steal approximately $150–$196 million in ETH and BSC assets. Sheldon Xia pledges full user compensation from company funds.

Bloomberg

23 April 2025

Sheldon Xia transitions from CEO to Group President; Nenter Chow appointed Global CEO.

GlobeNewswire

May 2026

BitMart publicly commits to publishing a proof-of-reserves report. Report is never delivered.

TFTC / NullTX

6 July 2026

Arkham Intelligence tracks exchange-linked BitMart wallets at approximately $102 million.

CoinTelegraph

24 July 2026

Global CEO Nenter Chow informed his employment is being terminated; offboarding begins. He states he had no role in management from this point forward.

Nenter Chow on X / The Block

26 July 2026

BitMart announces orderly wind-down of trading platform. New accounts, deposits, and orders halted immediately. Final trading day set for August 26, full platform cessation by January 31, 2027. BMX token drops approximately 58–81.5% in following days. User withdrawal complaints begin immediately.

CoinDesk

8 August 2026

Sheldon Xia states BitMart has 'not run away' and 'will not run away,' attributing withdrawal delays to internal asset consolidation. No reserve figures or timeline provided. US users with older accounts told to withdraw by this date.

Crypto Times / Crypto News

10 August 2026

OpenGradient co-founder Matthew Wang publicly alleges BitMart is 'functionally insolvent,' stating his firm cannot withdraw market-making capital from the platform.

Crypto Times

17 August 2026

Five-point ultimatum published via BitMart's Chinese-language X account (@BitMart_zh), demanding Sheldon Xia and Yi Li disclose wallets, assets, liabilities, reserves, and provide a repayment plan by August 19, or face submission of evidence to regulators and law enforcement worldwide.

Crypto Times / CoinTelegraph

17 August 2026

Sheldon Xia publicly dismisses the ultimatum as 'fabricated rumors,' claims the Chinese X account was hacked, and threatens police action and legal letters to X. Makes no disclosure of reserves, wallets, or repayment plan.

CoinTelegraph / TFTC

17 August 2026

On-chain investigator ZachXBT challenges Xia publicly: 'If you actually have the liquidity, then simply return the funds to everyone. Your actions have caused real people to lose access to their funds with little transparency provided.'

NullTX

19 August 2026

Deadline set by employees and users passes. Arkham-tracked wallets show approximately $36.5 million — down from $102 million on July 6 and $71 million at announcement. No response from Xia meeting the demands is reported.

CoinTelegraph / AMBCrypto
Provenance & Audit Trail
Anchored on SolanaVerify on-chain21 Wayback Archives

Decision Log

This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (3 events). 21 of 24 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.

full audit log →version history →

model: claude-sonnet-4-6

generated: 8/20/2026, 12:10:16 PM

last updated: 9/13/2026, 6:59:37 PM

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