- Chilean crypto exchange Orionx is shutting down after a forensic audit discovered over $7 million in custodial assets were moved to wallets it did not manage.
- The exchange has temporarily suspended withdrawals and filed a criminal complaint against co-founders Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, who allegedly transferred funds between 2018 and 2021.
- Tether led Orionx’s Series A in June 2025 as part of its Latin American expansion push, just 15 months before the closure.
Orionx, a Chilean crypto exchange backed by USDt stablecoin issuer Tether, announced its permanent closure Thursday after uncovering a multimillion-dollar custodial asset shortfall. A forensic audit revealed more than $7 million had moved to wallets the exchange did not manage, according to a company announcement on X.
“Our sole priority now is to return as much of our clients’ assets as possible,” Orionx stated, though withdrawals remain temporarily suspended. The closure comes just 15 months after Tether led Orionx’s Series A to expand digital asset adoption in Latin America.
On Aug. 27, chief operating officer Thomas Mac Millan detected a “significant mismatch” between internal records and actual custody holdings, as reported by Chilean newspaper La Tercera. An external forensic audit later confirmed that balances for Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Polygon exceeded onchain custody holdings.
Orionx filed a criminal complaint against former executives and co-founders Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, who allegedly had access to the custody systems. The complaint claims an account linked to Díaz received over $1.5 million across 14 transfers and that another wallet received 187 Ether, 4.1 million USDT and 200,000 USDC.
Zibert and Díaz denied the allegations, insisting they never acted against customers’ interests and that the cause of the shortfall remains unclear. Founded in Chile in 2017, Orionx grew to offer crypto payment and financial services across Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico.
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