A crypto nightmare: how OKX allegedly blocked an account with $400,000 over missing logs from 2020
Imagine waking up to find your crypto funds, worth a whopping $400,000, locked away by the very exchange you trusted. That’s the problem that Andrey, a client of OKX from Russia, has been facing since July 2025. His account was frozen, not because of something suspicious he did recently, but because of trading operations that happened five years ago. After nine long months of dealing with the platform, Andrey is now going to lose all his holdings.
The heart of the problem: five-year-old trades
The ordeal began on 11th of January 2025, when OKX’s risk control system identified a problem with Andrey’s account. The exchange confirmed the client’s identity through a video call, and in April asked for more information about the case. They were particularly interested in the high volume of transactions from 14th of August 2020. Andrey attributed this to “active trading on the platform, including scalping and spread trading to take advantage of short-term price fluctuations.”. This is basically rapid-fire market-making. By 20th of May, he had received a message from OKX confirming that no further documents were needed at that stage.
But this was only for a short time. On 21st of July, OKX announced that his account had been blocked for breaking certain rules (rules 3, 5 and 7) of their Terms of Service. These rules are about avoiding specific commercial activities and trading.
Andrey, looking confused, asked for more details. “I asked what specific actions broke these rules,” he said. “The exchange replied that it had allegedly ‘not received the necessary clarifications and evidence after repeated requests’ and therefore could not continue to service my account. But I hadn’t received any more requests!” He thought this was a clear mistake in the process.
A catch-22: Demanding the impossible?
A week later, OKX demanded more documents within seven days. They wanted a detailed explanation of how he chose his trading pairs from the last five years.
“I sent all the materials I had kept from that five-year-old period,” Andrey explained. “At that time, I was trying to make the market using the method explained by BitMEX. This involved placing orders at the edges of the spread, at the lowest buy price and the highest sell price. I had explained how my trading operations worked, but I couldn’t have written it down because the script that finds pairs with a spread… sends information to the console.
This is where it gets really frustrating: Andrey says that OKX has changed its rules about what documents they need from users. They now want users to store all of their trading logs and records of decisions for five years – something that they didn’t ask for before. He says that OKX didn’t seem to care about the market_data.json document he sent them, which had information about past trades from that exact time. He also says they didn’t check the content of his old scripts, even though they still used old endpoints and the old okex.com website. “As an external user, I cannot prove that the scripts work, as the trading pairs have long been deleted, and historical data does not contain records for 2020,” he said sadly. Andrey says his strategy was completely fair, a way of creating the market without using futures contracts.
After trying for nine months to solve the problem, OKX closed his support ticket on 29th of September. This meant that his account was blocked forever and his money was frozen.
OKX’s stance: silence and secrecy
When approached, OKX representatives offered little comfort, stating only that Andrey had received “all necessary clarifications” in the last support letter and suggesting he contact support chat for further questions. Citing their privacy policy, they refused to disclose any specific details about the situation, noting, “We cannot disclose data about any cases involving clients to third parties.”
A recurring issue for OKX?
This isn’t an isolated incident. Back in July, OKX CEO Star Xu himself publicly apologized to users for “unjustified account blocks,” attributing them to “false positives” within their regulatory compliance system. He admitted these processes still suffered from “a high level of erroneous judgments and suboptimal information collection,” promising improvements. At the time, OKX’s global compliance team and risk control group comprised over 600 people.
The harsh reminder: “not your keys, not your coins”
Andrey’s story teaches us an important lesson about cryptocurrency: storing large amounts of it on one central exchange is risky. The exchange controls your assets. This means that they can freeze your funds at any time, or if the law says they have to. If you want to be in control and feel secure, the best option is to have your own private keys.
In April 2024, OKX said that they did not deliberately block users from the CIS region. They said that they only block users if they break the rules. But Andrey’s experience suggests that these “violations” can sometimes be a matter of interpretation – or, perhaps, a tragic consequence of old or changing data retention policies.
Conclusion: taking control of your crypto future with IronWallet
Andrey’s experience shows us an important lesson: if you store your cryptocurrency on a centralized exchange, you are at risk of losing it. Your assets can become inaccessible overnight for many reasons, such as changes in policy, technical problems or new regulations. This is why it’s really important to have a reliable non-custodial wallet for your crypto. You can avoid these situations if you keep control of your private keys. If you’re looking for a way to store your cryptocurrency that’s both reliable and secure, the IronWallet app is a great option. It’s trusted by many users because it makes sure your keys stay with you and your funds are always available.
