Lost over 140k USD due to crypto exchange glitches (looking for advice)

I'm in a tough spot and could use some advice. A crypto exchange I was using has had some pretty shady practices after a big system crash, which ended up costing me and others a lot of money. Personally, I'm down over $140,000. Between January 9th and January 26th, 2025, I and several other traders ran into a bunch of issues like failed trade executions, orders not being canceled, leverage changes not going through, and trades opening and closing without any input. They’ve admitted to some of these problems, but they’re only compensating a select few users while denying others, even when we’ve got video evidence of their system failing. On top of that, they conveniently updated their Terms of Service right after all this started, making it harder to hold them accountable. They’ve got some conflicting claims about their regulatory status and are operating through offshore shell companies. They won’t accept any responsibility for the losses we faced because of their glitches, even though their verified reserves show they have enough funds to cover it and they’ve got this multi-million dollar “user insurance fund” mentioned on their site, but no info on how to actually claim from it. I’ve kept a ton of documentation chat logs, transaction records, and video proof of everything that went down. This isn’t just me having a bad trade; this is a massive issue affecting lots of users who couldn’t manage their positions properly because of their system problems. My lawyer mentioned it’d be tough and costly to pursue them since they are a shell company with no real address. He gave me a letter to send them and offered to email it, but I’m worried that could lead to my account getting shut down right away.

I think a complain should be sent to their regulatory body, thats if its a regulated exchange,.state your case with evidence, they can assist you from their end once they find find out your case is legit

they operate in the US with no US operation locations, they use a expired US MSB license that shows the location in Dubai as their way of saying they are fully legit.

Well, if you have any evidence, just name-drop the exchange you're using and post a scam accusation about it. That way, the community can will be aware. There are good exchanges and bad ones, so if you're trading on an unreliable platform, stuff like this can really happen.

well if I do that, then I run the risk of getting none of my money back.. I don't know what to do.. this is a lot of money to me that was lost from their issues after an unannounced upgrade as well as issues occurring since which they changed their ToS almost immediately after changing jurisdictions and trying to limit liability after the fact.

The moment you knew they are engaging in questionable practices that was your cue to leave. Why did you stay and continued to trade with them? He should name the exchange and save other people who will want to trade with them from losing their money as well. They need to be exposed and the attention of the forum drawn to it. Others could have fallen victims to them too and shared either how they recovered their money or what they did. OP should note this.

I only found out about questionable stuff after doing research into them, shell companies, fraud, etc.. I thought they were legit until I lost $$ from an unannounced upgrade and following bugs and did a TON of research. I need the $$, even 20k would help. $140k was a BIG hit to me. & I do 100% plan to name them if they do not plan to make it right. I will put all of the stuff I've collected on them on some website or see if a large crypto news outlet will cover but I will also post here. They are in top 20-30 CMC and have an almost 5 star rating on Trustpilot and allow USA users and were formed in late 2021. Should name them without naming them with this info which I won't confirm or deny.

You keep talking but you're not sharing with us what exactly the site is? There are lots of exchanges in CMC even it is on the top 30 not all exchanges under that can be trusted unless you talking about big exchange but these big exchanges have their own physical location. So you might be talking about shit-exchange? I mean exchanges with many shitcoins? Be careful in trading on these exchanges most of them are scam. Since you recorded all bugs, chats you can use them as evidence. Just give as the domain let me check if the exchange has a physical location. I'll try to investigate if I can able to find their location.

All you guys asking why he isn't revealing the name, its because he's afraid they'll just disappear and run with no compensation for him, if he exposes them. So I get it. OP, lesson learnt. Don't trade at CEX that are not regulated, or no license, pretty much the biggest red flag you can think of before depositing 6 figure USD. I would still ask another lawyer. Shell companies aren't so hard to trace the real owner these days. Some lawyers make that their living dude, try ask around.

Ask the other traders that were satisfied refunded how they went about it so you can follow their path. You can use their provided informations t back your lawsuit up at the court. The exchange should be a regulatory platform which you don't have to have fear about your account getting locked over standing on your right if actually the exchange has a high rate of reputation. You can as well get the exchange exposed here so others can take caution trading with them if you are really telling the truth.

I remember losing some amount in an exchange due to a glitch. It was also trading with leverage, and the glitch led to the liquidation of my entire positions. I wrote a detailed report to the exchange support, and they reimbursed me after a while, but it was a terrible situation. I guess I was lucky. I am pretty sure that glitched affected lots of traders, some of which may have not even reported the losses. The “insurance fund” is for bankrupt accounts due to sudden market movements not other form of losses, or so they say. So you have a choice to either take that offer or take up a notch higher with your complaints. With the help of Wayback Machine, you can pull up their archived version of the terms before the incident, and you can start your war using that. You can also take that war to platforms like x.com with the help of crypto influencers, who usually expose scams. At one point you will have no choice but just name that exchange.

Your were so lucky that the exchange refunded you, personally I had the experience as well where I was logged out automatically when I just placed a trade which happened that I have not in input stop my loss, but mine was that I didn't bother reporting the case, since the amount that I lost wasn't that much to raise an alarm. I think I could also recall something like this case sometime in 2022, where Binance platform experience a glitch and a particular trader who lost huge amount of money took Binance to court for repayment, Though I didn't follow that case till the end to know if Binance did later refund the trader involved.

Yeah, lots of traders have lost money due to glitches. When Bitmex was so popular, during sudden market movements as people were trying to close positions or enter stop losses, the platform would free leading to massive liquidations and losses. The exchange also has a massive insurance fund. People would complain left, right and center, but the exchange would never ever bother touching the insurance fund stating that it was only meant for situations where they have to avoid auto-deleveraging of trader's positions. I don't know which exchange OP is using, but he shouldn't give up on the fight for now