$7 million. Gone. Not lost in a hack. Not wiped out by a market crash. Allegedly walked out the door by the very people who ran the exchange – and Tether blessed them with money and a press release 15 months ago.
Meet Orionx. Chilean crypto exchange, founded 2017, expanded across Peru, Colombia and Mexico. Tether led its Series A in June 2025, positioning the platform as the regional gateway for USDT adoption across Latin America.
This week it announced it is shutting down forever.
Here is what the polite coverage buries.
On September 2, Orionx filed a criminal complaint against its own co-founders, Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz. The complaint alleges customer assets were siphoned out of the company’s custody between 2018 and 2021 – sent to accounts on other crypto platforms.
The numbers are damning. An account linked to Díaz allegedly received more than $1.5 million across 14 transfers. Another wallet allegedly received 187 Ether, over 4.1 million USDT and 200,000 USDC from Orionx. The shortfall spans Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Polygon.
It took a forensic audit to find it. On August 27, COO Thomas Mac Millan spotted a "significant mismatch" between what Orionx’s books said and what its custody wallets actually held. An external audit compared the records against onchain data. The books were fat. The wallets were empty.
Orionx announced its permanent closure on September 3. Withdrawals are suspended. Over 100,000 registered users are now waiting to find out if they will ever see their money again.
The co-founders deny everything, of course. They say they never acted against customers’ interests and the cause of the shortfall "remains unclear."
THEM vs US:
Tether – the same company whose USDT is marketed as "one dollar, always" – put its stamp of approval on this exchange 15 months before the walls caved in. Where was the due diligence? Where was the oversight of the custody systems they were funding?
Chile’s financial regulator, the CMF, rejected Orionx’s licensing application in June 2026. The exchange had been operating in a regulatory gray zone the whole time. The state did not protect those 100,000 users either.
The structure is always the same. The people with access to the keys are the people accused of taking the money. The customers – the ones who trusted the brand, the logo, the "audited" claims – are the ones holding the bag.
This is not their first rodeo. It is the same story as Zondacrypto, where $95 million vanished and the founder literally disappeared. It is the same story as every exchange that ever told you "we hold your coins safely."
Exchanges are not banks. Banks are not your friend. And a custody wallet is not your wallet.
The only counterparty who has never once stolen from you is you. IF YOU DON’T RUN THE KEYS, IT WAS NEVER YOUR BITCOIN. The forensic audits, the regulatory approvals, the Tether investment – none of it protects you when the people behind the counter decide the books look better without your balance in them.
Don’t be the next Orionx customer. Buy your Bitcoin the way it was meant to be bought, and hold it yourself.
Get started at loveisbitcoin.com/bull and use coupon code LOVEISBITCOIN at checkout.
So the question is simple:
Tether had this exchange in its portfolio for 15 months and never noticed billions of tokens being shuffled out the back door – what exactly do you think their "due diligence" on YOUR exchange looks like? Your coins, or their fee?
This article is for educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Always self-custody.
Source: CryptoBriefing / Cointelegraph
