Orionx shut down in Chile and left the question blockchain was supposed to answer
By Andrés Peña Mellado
Orionx shut down its exchange in Chile after discovering more than US$7 million had left its custody. This was the case where blockchain was supposed to answer with proof, and instead it answered with opposing accounts.
Everything can be verified on a blockchain. That was the promise that brought many of us here. That is why the closure of Orionx hurts differently. It is more than an exchange shutting its doors. It is a company that used transparent rails and ended up asking people to take its word for it.
On September 3, Orionx announced the start of a process to permanently close its operations. The decision followed a forensic audit that confirmed the transfer of more than US$7 million in assets under custody to wallets the company did not administer.
Withdrawals were temporarily suspended. The company says its priority is to return as many assets as possible quickly, fairly, and in an orderly way. Its full notice remains on its status page.
What happened at Orionx?
The story does not begin in September. It begins with an internal review.
According to La Tercera, Joel Vainstein became general manager on January 15, 2025, as the company worked to comply with Chile's Fintech Law. Thomas Mac Millan joined him as Chief Operating Officer in March 2025. The first signs of a discrepancy had appeared in October 2025.
On August 27, Mac Millan found a significant gap between the balances shown by internal systems and the assets actually held in custody. The people who would later be named in the criminal complaint were tasked with investigating it because they had the access and permissions needed to retrieve the information. When no progress followed, the board formed an ad hoc committee. That committee documented inconsistencies in a November 14, 2025 report.
Those named in the report challenged its conclusions. The company then commissioned an external forensic audit. According to the criminal complaint cited by La Tercera and Diario Financiero, reconciling internal records with what could be verified on each blockchain showed that the systems reported more than existed at the addresses under custody for four assets: Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, and Polygon.
The figures are stark. The difference for Bitcoin was reportedly US$3,933,950.65; for Ethereum, US$2,286,474.58; for XRP, US$762,016.60; and for Polygon, US$201.39. The complaint describes an approximate loss of US$6,066,152 attributed to those accused. People familiar with Deloitte's audit, cited by Diario Financiero, speak of at least US$6,982,643 and a systematic pattern, rather than accounting errors or technical failures.
The criminal proceedings have two fronts. Orionx filed a report with the Public Prosecutor's Office and, on September 2, 2026, a criminal complaint alleging disloyal administration against two founding partners: former general manager Roberto Zibert and former technology manager Joaquín Díaz. The Public Prosecutor's Office and the courts will determine whether crimes were committed and what role each person played.
The complaint describes transactions between 2018 and 2021 to accounts on other platforms. It mentions an account linked to comisiones@orionx.com with unexplained bitcoin credits and debits; a transfer of 70 bitcoins from coldstorage@orionx.com; 79 bitcoins sent to an unknown account (Orionx says it never had a corporate account with Celsius); a wallet that allegedly received 187 ether, 4,146,643 USDT, and 200,000 USDC; and an account listed as Binance Joaco with more than US$1.5 million across 14 transactions.
According to La Tercera, Díaz acknowledged to the committee that the last account was his. All of this is what the complaint alleges. It is not a court ruling.
Why does the CMF say this is outside its supervision?
In June, Chile's Financial Market Commission (CMF) rejected seven applications for registration in its Financial Service Providers Registry, including Orionx's. According to BioBío, documents, audited financial statements, and the customer protection guarantee required by Law No. 21,521 and General Rule No. 502 were missing. After the rejection, Orionx lost its temporary authorization to operate.
On September 4, CMF president Catherine Tornel clarified that Orionx was outside the commission's regulatory perimeter and that it was not supervising any closure plan. Orionx had told La Tercera that the rejection was procedural and reversible. Two months later, it announced the closure.
Orionx was no minor player. It was founded in Chile in 2017. In 2018, together with Buda and CryptoMarket, it sued several banks before the Competition Tribunal for denying them current accounts. They lost at the tribunal and in the Supreme Court. In June 2025, Tether led its Series A, according to Cointelegraph.
The most absurd part is that this should have been knowable on-chain
One thing is clear here. Using a blockchain does not, by itself, create decentralization. Nor does it reduce the possibility of evading fraud detection if the information is not public to those participating in the system, in this case through an exchange.
With blockchain, we should already be able to know how the funds moved and who moved them. That is the tool supposedly offered by verification and verifiability. This was the case where it should have shone.
A free tool can be used to protect or to hide. Judging it without looking at how it was used is equally absurd in either direction.
To this day, they have not even shown users a record of the movements. Reducing the debate to “believe me,” “I'm being defamed,” or “what they say happened isn't what happened” is shameful. Repeating a claim does not make it true.
Maintaining something together, outside a company or a state, calls for a bare minimum: visible rules and shared verification. Without that, custody is a black box even when it runs on transparent rails.
Those accused have their own account. In an email to customers, Joaquín Díaz and Roberto Zibert say they are shocked by the news and by the way it was communicated. They reject the charges. They say they never acted against their customers and that the shortfall has not been established with certainty. They call for an independent investigation with full access. Concern does not replace proof.
That is why we need to be careful about whom we trust. If even an institution such as Orionx, with years in the ecosystem, cannot set a good example, its negligence affects us all.
