Orionx, a Chilean crypto exchange backed by Tether, initiated permanent closure after a forensic audit uncovered a $7 million shortfall in customer assets. The company announced the shutdown Thursday, stating its priority is returning client funds with withdrawals temporarily suspended.
The audit determined that more than $7 million in custodial assets moved to wallets Orionx did not control. The discrepancy spanned Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Polygon, where on-chain balances at Orionx custody addresses fell short of amounts recorded in the exchange's internal systems.
Transfers out of Orionx custody allegedly occurred between 2018 and 2021, moving assets to accounts on other crypto platforms—a multi-year pattern of unauthorized movement.
Orionx filed a criminal complaint Wednesday against co-founders Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, alleging both former executives accessed the company's crypto custody systems during the asset transfers. According to La Tercera, one account associated with Díaz 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.
Zibert and Díaz denied the allegations, stating they never acted against customers' interests and that the precise cause of the shortfall remains unclear.
The issue surfaced Aug. 27 when Chief Operating Officer Thomas Mac Millan detected a mismatch between recorded system balances and actual custodial assets during a review of Orionx's 2025 operations, conducted to comply with Chile's Fintech Law. Orionx then commissioned the external forensic audit, comparing internal records against verifiable on-chain data.
Tether invested in Orionx in June 2025, exclusively leading the Series A funding round as part of its strategy to expand digital asset adoption across Latin America. Orionx, founded in Chile in 2017, operated beyond retail exchange services, offering crypto payments and financial services in Mexico, Peru and Colombia.
