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Story: Orionx Closes After $7 Million Customer Asset Gap and Co-Founders Charged

By Steven Anderson

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What the Forensic Audit Actually Found. The audit didn't just find sloppy accounting. It found that recorded balances for Bitcoin, Ether,…

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Tether's Series A and the Compliance Review That Unraveled Everything. Tether led Orionx's Series A funding round in June 2025.

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What Clients and Investors Are Left With. Unclear. That's kind of the honest answer right now.

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Orionx is done. The Chilean crypto exchange, which had Tether backing and operations across Latin America, announced it's closing after a forensic audit turned up a $7 million…

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The announcement came via X, where Orionx said its main priority is returning client funds. No timeline was given for when withdrawals might resume.

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The audit didn't just find sloppy accounting. It found that recorded balances for Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, and Polygon were higher than what Orionx actually held in custody.

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The company's COO, Thomas Mac Millan, was the one who first caught the mismatch — a discrepancy between recorded balances and actual custody holdings.

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The complaint is specific. Díaz's account allegedly received over $1.5 million through 14 separate transfers.

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Both Zibert and Díaz deny the allegations. They say they didn't compromise customer interests.

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Tether led Orionx's Series A funding round in June 2025. The goal, at the time, was to push digital asset adoption across Latin America.

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But that growth story is basically over now.

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Related: XRP Ledger Hits 4 Million AI Transactions with Mastercards Agentic Commerce Boost

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The forensic audit came out of a broader operations review Orionx had been running in 2025, tied to compliance with Chile's Fintech Law.

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Fifteen months after Tether's investment, Orionx is shutting down. That's a fast collapse for a company that had real regional momentum and institutional backing.

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Orionx says it's focused on returning client assets, but withdrawals are still suspended and no recovery timeline has been shared.

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