MEXC

MEXC is a centralized exchange: you deposit crypto or buy it with a card or through peer-to-peer sellers, MEXC holds it in its own wallets, and you trade against other users on its order books. It says it has operated since 2018 and serves more than 40 million users in over 170 countries and regions, figures it publishes without a date or breakdown.

The company you contract with is named in the User Agreement. The version last updated on 13 October 2026 is concluded with MEXC (Comoros) Ltd, a company registered in the Union of Comoros with an address in Mutsamudu, Anjouan. MEXC does not publish a group structure, a parent company or audited accounts, and it names no headquarters beyond that registered address.

The corporate history is not straightforward. According to the Seychelles Financial Services Authority, an earlier company called MEXC Global LTD was struck off the Seychelles register in August 2023 and dissolved in December 2024, and in May 2026 the regulator identified another Seychelles company, MX Global Ltd, as the operator of mexc.com. The Comoros entity now appears in the terms instead.

MEXC's leadership page names Vugar Usi as chief executive, Robert MacDonald as chief compliance officer and Derrick Yeo as head of global customer service. The company describes Usi as a former chief operating officer of Bitget. It does not name its founders or owners. MX is MEXC's own token; holding it can reduce trading fees on eligible pairs.

No regulator supervises MEXC's main exchange business as far as its own documents show. It lists no licence on its site, and it does not appear in ESMA's interim register of crypto-asset service providers authorised under MiCA, which was checked in October 2026. That matters most for European users, because the MiCA transition periods have ended across the EU.

Several regulators have acted against it. On 24 September 2025 the Dutch AFM warned that MEXC was providing custody, exchange and trading-platform services in the Netherlands without the required licence, and that because MEXC was no longer in any trade register it was unclear where the entity was based. On 26 May 2026 the Seychelles FSA said MX Global Ltd had run the platform without a licence under the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act since at least January 2025, began enforcement measures and referred the case for possible legal action. The FSA added that, because the company is not licensed, it cannot investigate complaints or help recover funds.

MEXC is also withdrawing from France. An announcement dated 28 October 2026 says users linked to France will be moved to reduce-only mode in four batches between November 2026 and January 2027, that open positions will be closed at fair price from 22 January 2027, and that withdrawals close on 5 March 2027, after which remaining assets go to a regulated custodian.

• Registration in a company register is not a licence, and MEXC names neither.
• A regulator warning is not a finding that customer money is missing; it means nobody supervises how that money is held.
• MEXC's terms send disputes to arbitration at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, with three arbitrators, and require claims to be filed within one year.

MEXC is not available in the United States. Its User Agreement lists the US among its Prohibited Jurisdictions, together with North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Canada, plus any country under comprehensive EU or OFAC sanctions or on the FATF call-for-action list. The list is described as non-exclusive and can change at MEXC's discretion.

The terms put the burden on you: if MEXC decides you misrepresented where you live, it can close the account immediately and liquidate open positions. Using a VPN from a restricted country is therefore a direct route to a frozen account, not a workaround. Readers in the US can find venues that accept them in our guide to which exchanges Americans can use.

Some products are narrower than the account itself. MEXC says certain features depend on your region and account eligibility, including the option to pay fees in MX, and the French wind-down shows that a country can be removed with a few weeks of notice.

MEXC's headline is low base fees; how that compares with other large venues is set out in how MEXC compares with other crypto exchanges. Its public market API, read on 29 October 2026, returns a 0% maker and 0.05% taker commission for spot BTC/USDT, and a 0.01% maker and 0.04% taker fee for the USDT-margined BTC perpetual contract. Its fee page did not render a full schedule for a logged-out visitor, and it warns that maker and taker rates may vary with platform events or user region, so the rate on your own trade history is the one that counts.

Zero-fee promotions run on selected pairs, and MEXC offers a discount when fees are paid in MX, though some pairs are excluded. Withdrawal fees are set per coin and network and shown on the withdrawal screen. MEXC does not publish an all-in cost of trading, so the spread and depth on the pair you use matter as much as the commission.

Our own measurement from 14 July 2026 gives a sense of the all-in cost: a $10,000 market buy of bitcoin came to 0.0565% including spread and fee, and a $100,000 buy to 0.059%, with 39.5 BTC of depth within 0.1% of the best ask. Those figures are dated and will have moved; our guide to what a $10,000 trade really costs explains the method.

MEXC's product menu covers spot trading, USDT-margined perpetual futures, copy trading, spot grid and DCA bots, a convert tool, peer-to-peer fiat trading, pre-market trading of tokens before launch, Earn and loans, and RealStocks, a product for exposure to listed shares. Its announcement center shows a steady flow of new futures listings, delistings and moves of tokens into a separate Innovation Zone; a single week in late October 2026 included all three.

The futures side carries the most risk. The BTC perpetual allows leverage of up to 500x, and MEXC routinely changes funding settlement frequency and maximum leverage on individual contracts by announcement. A separate futures insurance fund absorbs losses from liquidations; it does not cover deposits.

MEXC publishes more reserve data than many offshore venues. Its proof-of-reserves page, at the 8 October 2026 snapshot, shows wallet assets of 12,402.93 BTC against 4,220.56 BTC of user balances (294%), 1.68 billion USDT against 1.37 billion (122%), 365.3 million USDC against 316.5 million (115%) and 59,691 ETH against 53,821 ETH (111%). It lists the wallet addresses and balances behind the totals and lets logged-in users check that their balance is included in a Merkle tree. MEXC's press releases say Hacken reviews the reports each month, covering liabilities, wallet ownership and the reserve calculation.

A proof of reserves has limits that MEXC's page does not spell out. It is a snapshot of selected assets on one day; it shows liabilities as MEXC reports them; and it says nothing about debts the company may owe elsewhere. Our explainer on how to check an exchange holds your money covers what a snapshot can and cannot prove.

The Guardian Fund was announced on 11 June 2025 at $100 million to cover user losses from platform breaches and serious system vulnerabilities, with deployment once MEXC verifies an incident. MEXC links one USDT wallet for it on Etherscan; on the 8 October snapshot that same address appears in the reserve wallet list with about 101.6 million USDT. MEXC does not say whether the fund's assets are also counted toward the reserve ratio, and it publishes no claims process beyond its statement that payouts follow verification. The company says it plans to grow the fund to $500 million within two years. Our article on what exchange insurance funds cover explains why scope and payout rules matter more than the headline figure.

In our searches we found no report of a breach of MEXC's own wallets. MEXC publishes no external insurance policy and no audited financial statements, and an unlicensed operator offers no regulatory backstop if the company fails.

MEXC's terms reserve the right to require identity verification and to suspend or close an account if verification is not completed, and they allow MEXC to freeze accounts, keep trade data and terminate service at its discretion. Its own help content now carries a page on frozen accounts and withdrawal limits, which reflects how often users meet this.

The best-documented case is that of the trader known as White Whale. MEXC froze about $3 million in his account in 2025, saying he had automated his trading in breach of its terms; he denied it and ran a public campaign. On 31 October 2025, MEXC chief strategy officer Cecilia Hsueh apologised publicly, the trader confirmed he had received the funds, and MEXC said it would revise its risk-control and customer-service policies and add a fast-track channel for unresolved fund access. The episode shows both that the freeze power is real and that the route to reversing it ran through publicity rather than a regulator.

If you dispute a decision, the terms require you to open a ticket and negotiate in good faith before any arbitration, and they waive class actions.

Before depositing, check that your country is not on the prohibited list, because MEXC can close an account later if it decides you were not eligible.

To leave, withdraw each asset to a wallet you control, choosing a network that the receiving wallet supports, and allow for the per-network fee. Close futures positions first, since positions left open can be liquidated. MEXC suspends deposits and withdrawals for individual coins during network upgrades, so check its announcement center if a withdrawal is unavailable. Our step-by-step guide on moving crypto off an exchange covers the checks worth making before a large transfer.

MEXC offers live chat and a ticket system through its help center, plus dedicated forms for reporting abnormal funds, OTC questions and law-enforcement requests. Its official announcement channel and community groups are linked from the website footer.

Scammers imitate exchange staff on Telegram and other messaging apps. MEXC runs an official verification tool, MEXC Verify, for checking whether a website, account or contact is genuine. Treat any unsolicited message offering to unfreeze an account or recover funds for a fee as a scam.

MEXC dates its start to 2018. The milestones that can be dated from primary sources since then are mostly regulatory.

• 17 August 2023: MEXC Global LTD struck off the Seychelles register, according to the FSA; dissolved on 18 December 2024.
• 11 June 2025: Guardian Fund announced at $100 million.
• 24 September 2025: Dutch AFM public warning.
• 31 October 2025: public apology and release of about $3 million frozen in the White Whale dispute.
• 26 May 2026: Seychelles FSA names MX Global Ltd as the unlicensed operator of mexc.com.
• 13 October 2026: User Agreement updated naming MEXC (Comoros) Ltd as the contracting entity.
• 28 October 2026: wind-down of services for users in France announced.