What is CoinEx?

CoinEx grew out of the mining industry, founded in 2017 by Haipo Yang, the creator of the ViaBTC mining pool, and it now reports more than 10 million registered users trading a catalog of over 1,000 listed assets weighted toward small-cap listings that larger venues skip. The exchange runs from a Seychelles base after starting life in Hong Kong.

Perp traders use CoinEx less for depth on majors and more for early leverage on new tokens, since the platform pairs a long-tail futures menu with 100x maximum leverage and verification that stays optional below daily withdrawal limits. The mining lineage still shapes the culture, favoring community listing votes and early support for chains its pool business touches first. Where it sits between casual spot buyers and leveraged traders is the split explained in our perps vs spot guide.

CoinEx Perpetual Futures Fees

CoinEx futures start at 0.03% maker and 0.05% taker for VIP 0, stepping down through six levels, with VIP 1 already trimming rates to 0.028% and 0.048% before the ladder reaches 0.02% and 0.04% at VIP 5, per the official fee schedule. Qualification works on an any-of-four basis, so CET holdings, total account asset value, 30-day spot volume, or 30-day futures volume can each move an account up, with snapshots at 0:00 UTC and levels refreshed daily at 1:00 UTC.

The details reward reading. CET held at linked external wallet addresses counts toward VIP qualification, sub-account activity rolls into the main account, and the applied rate is the better of the VIP discount or a separate market maker schedule that bottoms at a -0.01% maker rebate. Futures fees compute as executed price times executed amount times the rate, settled in USDT on USDT-margined contracts, and market maker volume is excluded from VIP volume counts. The 20% CET fee deduction covers spot only and never applies to futures, a distinction most tier summaries miss, and one to weigh against rival ladders in our best VIP programs guide.

How CoinEx Funding Rates Work

CoinEx settles funding every 8 hours by default but shortens the cycle automatically when premiums run hot, an escalation mechanism few venues use. When the hourly average premium index breaches a market's funding cap for 4 consecutive hours, the settlement interval drops one level, from 8 hours to 4 and down to a minimum of 2, with an 8-hour cooldown between adjustments and a 24-hour observation window before the cycle steps back. If the cap is breached again inside that window the clock restarts, so an overheated market can hold the faster cycle for days, per the funding documentation.

The rate itself builds from a depth-weighted price computed against each market's margin impact amount rather than a simple top-of-book read, plus a 0.03% buffer coefficient, with caps set per market. Whether a positive or negative print pays you depends on your side, a mechanic unpacked in our positive vs negative funding guide, and the largest market's live prints sit on our BTC perpetuals page.

CoinEx Perpetual Contract Types & Leverage

CoinEx lists linear perpetuals settled in USDT or USDC alongside inverse BTC and ETH contracts settled in the coin itself, with leverage reaching 100x on the most liquid pairs and tighter caps down the long tail. USDC settlement on a mid-tier venue remains uncommon enough to earn a place beside the platforms in our best USDC-margined exchanges list.

Both cross and isolated margin are supported, a choice weighed in our cross margin exchanges guide, and sub-accounts aggregate into the main account for fee tiering. Copy trading and a separate AMM market, which runs its own fee system outside the VIP ladder, round out the stack. No stock, index, or commodity perpetuals are offered.

CoinEx Licenses & Regulation

CoinEx's enforcement history is concrete and on the public record. In June 2023 the exchange settled with New York Attorney General Letitia James for more than $1.7 million, comprising over $1.1 million in refunds to affected New York investors and over $600,000 in state penalties, per the Attorney General's release. The consent order bans CoinEx from New York, bars new US accounts entirely, and left existing US customers withdrawal-only. James's office framed the resolution as a warning to unregistered platforms, part of a run of actions that also reached KuCoin and Nexo.

The license shelf is thin beyond that history. CoinEx holds no MiCA CASP authorization and confirmed in its own official announcement that EEA services ended at the bloc's licensing deadline, while earlier registrations in Estonia and Poland lapsed with the pre-MiCA transitional regimes they belonged to. Where each ruleset leaves offshore venues like this is mapped in our regulation explainer, and the complete jurisdiction rundown lives in our CoinEx restricted countries list.

Where is CoinEx Available?

CoinEx blocks the United States, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Canada, and as of July 1, 2026 all 27 EEA states joined the list when the exchange withdrew rather than pursue MiCA authorization, leaving withdrawals open for affected European users. The exit announcement named every one of the 27 states individually and committed to keeping withdrawal services running indefinitely. The US prohibition is contractual as well as practical, since the New York consent order forbids new American accounts platform-wide.

For derivatives that means zero US access and zero EEA access, with the active user base concentrated across Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the CIS region. Verification stays optional below daily withdrawal thresholds, which keeps CoinEx adjacent to the venues in our no-KYC perpetual exchanges ranking even though VPN use to dodge geographic blocks is grounds for account restriction.

Is CoinEx Safe?

CoinEx's security record includes one major breach, a September 2023 hot wallet compromise first reported at $28 million and later assessed substantially higher as more chains were counted, after which the exchange suspended deposits and withdrawals, rebuilt its wallet architecture from scratch, promised a public post-incident report, and compensated affected users in full from its own funds. Since the incident, a share of trading fees feeds a dedicated Shield Fund reserved for extreme losses, per the security solutions page.

Reserve transparency runs on monthly Merkle tree Proof of Reserves showing backing above 100% on covered assets, verifiable per asset from the reserve pages, with over 95% of assets in cold storage using multi-signature controls and MPC-based dual signatures on the hot side. Account protections cover 2FA, YubiKey support, IP locks, and anti-phishing codes, with audits from SlowMist. Full compensation after a real breach counts for something, and it still leaves counterparty risk on a centralized venue above zero.

How Does CoinEx Compare to Other Perpetual Exchanges?

CoinEx's closest structural rivals are MEXC and KuCoin, fellow long-tail altcoin venues serving traders locked out of, or priced off, the majors. All three run optional or tiered verification for parts of their base, but CoinEx alone carries a signed US consent order, which reads as both a scar and a settled certainty. Against its two rivals it trades breadth for candor, carrying a thinner futures menu than MEXC but a cleaner disclosure record than most peers, including a fully compensated hack and a settled rather than open US enforcement file, while its adaptive funding intervals give carry traders a variable few rivals introduce.

The gap to Binance, Bybit, and OKX on depth is wide and visible in crowd positioning on our long/short ratio dashboard, and every tracked matchup sits in the comparison hub for traders weighing the trade.