MEXC apologizes to ‘White Whale’ trader over $3M freeze

About three months after a pseudonymous crypto trader reported that the MEXC exchange had frozen about $3 million worth of their holdings, a representative publicly apologized and released the funds.

In a Friday X post, MEXC Chief Strategy Officer Cecilia Hsueh said the exchange “f***-ed up” in handling a situation with a crypto user called the White Whale. In July, MEXC froze $3.1 million of the user’s funds, allegedly due to the exchange’s “risk control rules.”

“We apologize to [the White Whale], and his money is already released,” said Hsueh. “He can claim it at any time. I messed up in communicating with him. I got emotional, and I shouldn’t have.”

The move from the centralized exchange prompted the White Whale to launch a $2 million social media campaign targeting MEXC in August. He later said he had increased funding for the venture to $2.5 million after reporting that MEXC had requested he fly to Malaysia to resolve the issue and release the funds.

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Many users still blame the exchange for the situation

“[W]hile appreciated, it [the apology] didn’t specify what they were apologizing for,” said the White Whale in response to Hsueh’s post. “Implying I was a criminal (with their public AML claims in the beginning) or a scammer (with the most recent accusations after AML was publicly debunked) would have been nice.”

The crypto trader said the “work is not yet done,” claiming that there were hundreds of other cases similar to his that he intended to pursue in order to recover funds. He pledged to “distribute 100%” of the released $3 million to 20,000 supporters behind his social media campaign and nonprofit organizations.

“Most regular users wouldn’t stand a chance in a situation like this,” said Reddit user Effective-Impact8054 in response to the resolution. “So yeah, it’s great that the White Whale finally got paid, but it doesn’t change the fact that MEXC froze a legit trader’s funds for months and only fixed it once the internet got involved.”

According to data from Nansen, the price of MEXC’s token (MX) dropped about 3.5% following Hsueh’s post, from $2.30 to $2.22 at the time of publication.

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