It hasn’t been a good year for ACX.io — they’ve been having a few troubles with their banking.

I strongly suggest you get your cryptos off ACX while you can, because you’re certainly not getting your actual money out.

ACX has been going a few years. They’re owned by a group of Australian and Hong Kong companies. They opened for trading in April 2016. Their web page looks very nicely designed, and “The largest liquidity pool and orderbook of Bitcoin in Australia” certainly sounds like a good thing to have!

Though ACX created their Twitter account in March 2016 (archive), they’ve only tweeted from January to March this year. You’ll be reassured to hear that they’re proud members (archive) of the Australian Digital Commerce Association.

At the start of February, ACX announced new daily withdrawal limits (archive) of AUD$25,000 for personal customers or $100,000 for corporate customers.

New AUD withdrawal limits!

Personal- $25,000 Corporate- $100,000 — ACX.IO (@ACXTWEET) February 1, 2018

Fortunately, on 23 February they advised that Super-Trader accounts (archive) could do up to $1 million a day:

Super-Trader!

Super-Trader accounts have the benefit of an AUD $1,000,000 daily withdrawal limit and 0.1% trading fees. Please contact support@acx.io for more information. — ACX.IO (@ACXTWEET) February 23, 2018

Problems started to become apparent soon after, however.

On March 6, ACX emailed customers about losing their banking at Westpac:

From: Support ACX <support@acx.io>

Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 at 17:35

Subject: ACX.IO update Please be aware that ACX is no longer accepting any deposits from Westpac. DO NOT make any deposits to the ACX Westpac bank account. If you have already don’t worry this will return in 1-3 business days into the bank account you sent it from. ACX is now using Commonwealth for all our banking needs. This will change in your ACX deposit account automatically. However please update your saved payee details in your internet banking. Thank you. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused. If you have any questions please send a ticket to support@acx.io or message our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ACXIO-166422844109030/

Three days later, the relationship with the Commonwealth Bank wasn’t working out so well, with inexplicable delays in getting your actual money out — though they took care to assure customers that deposits were working just fine:

From: Support Team – ACX.IO <support@acx.io>

Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 at 11:58

Subject: ACX Update – Banking Due to the recent changes of our banking system to Commonwealth, we are experiencing a delay with withdrawals at the moment. Withdrawals in AUD may take an extra 4 business days. Please do not cancel your withdrawal and make a new withdrawal request, as this will push your withdrawal to the back of the queue. Currently, we are working very hard to fix this issue as soon as possible. Deposits in AUD are working fine and these will take the usual 1-3 business days to enter your ACX account. The new deposit information can be found in your ACX account on the Dashboard (AUD – Deposit), enter your deposit amount and the new banking information will show. We understand that this is causing more difficulty than we anticipated and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused. If you do have any questions, please contact us at support@acx.io

A month later, in early April, the withdrawal limit was reduced again:

From: support acx.io <support@acx.io>

Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2018 at 14:35

Subject: Banking Update From ACX ACX is now officially regulated by AUSTRAC. From April the 3rd, all Australian digital currency exchanges must meet AUSTRAC regulations. Together ACX and AUSTRAC will be reducing the risk to consumers while preventing fraudulent activity from occurring. For more information please refer to the link below: http://www.austrac.gov.au/ Due to these recent regulations, ACX has now enhanced its AML and CTF processes by changing the Individual AUD daily withdrawal limit from $25,000 to $20,000. From today any request over 20,000 will be rejected. Please adhere to these new guidelines for a smooth withdrawal. We apologize for any inconvenience caused over the past couple of weeks with withdrawals. Thank you for understanding and patience during this time.

The limit was further reduced two weeks later, though this time they blamed an apparently-international banker conspiracy against cryptocurrencies:

From: support acx.io <support@acx.io>

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 at 16:09

Subject: Banking Update from ACX Due to further banking issues, we are reducing our withdrawal limits for the next month. We would like to keep our current banking relationship and will adhere to banking policy. This reduction for personal requests will bring us in line with other exchanges around Australia. The daily AUD withdrawal limits will change from $20,000 to $15,000. From today any request over $15,000 will be rejected. Please adhere to these new guidelines for a smooth withdrawal. Please be aware that we are not the first exchange to have issues with AUD withdrawals. If you are wanting to learn more about why this happening a lot in the cryptocurrency space please take a look at the articles below. https://www.weststeincard.com/private/blog/why-is-it-a-problem-to-withdraw-money-from-cryptocurrency-exchanges/ http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/investing/coinspot-rubbishes-liquidity-claims-says-it-is-getting-closer-to-turning-on-australian-dollar-deposits/news-story/ac5de7b98696121adace52b3157b8ca7 We have a solution and currently working on that now. We hope to have an update at the end of the month to inform you of our movements. Thank you for understanding and sticking with us during these temporary measures. If there are any issues please contact support and we will do our best to meet your requirements.

On Monday 23 April, ACX revealed the solution to their banking issues: Commonwealth dumping them. They tried to go back to Westpac:

From: Banking Details Update <support@acx.io>

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 at 15:57

Subject: New Deposit Addresss ACX has now updated our deposit information. This new information will change in your ACX account automatically. Please update your saved payee details in your internet banking to the new deposit address. Please do not make any deposits to Golden Alpha Capital. However, if you already have done this before Friday your deposit will still go through to your ACX account. If you have any queries regarding the new deposit information please send a ticket to support@acx.io We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

How long did their second stint with Westpac last? A week. Today at lunchtime AEST (Tuesday 1 May), ACX confessed to customers that they had lost their banking again:

From: support acx.io <support@acx.io>

Date: Tue, 1 May 2018 at 12:07

Subject: New Banking Update Over the weekend ACX encountered an issue with our bank account. Currently, the Australian banks are extremely hostile towards cryptocurrency exchanges. This is a difficult time for exchanges relationships with the banks as new regulations legitimize cryptocurrency. If you’re wanting to learn more about why this happening in the cryptocurrency space, please take a look at the article below.

bitcoinist.com/australian-banks-reportedly-freezing-bank-accounts-bitcoin-users/ All AUD withdrawals may take up to 15 business days to process from the 1st of May. We are currently developing new relationships to avoid this issue in the future and expect a full banking recovery later in the year. If you do need an update on a withdrawal/ deposit please send a ticket to support@acx.io We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused during this difficult time.

The best bit is ACX linking to Frank Chung’s excellent story for news.com.au on Australian crypto exchanges and their banking troubles — even though the story leads with crypto exchange Coinspot claiming that everything is fine, fine and there are no liquidity issues here, perish the thought.

My favourite part of that article is when Michaela Juric, a.k.a. “Bitcoin Babe,” complains (archive) that she’s been “banned from 30 different Australian banks and counting” (archive) — and at no point seems to have considered the possibility that if thirty different banks ban you, the problem might involve you and not just them.

This is a letter I received a few weeks ago. Also included was a T&C's booklet. I've highlighted the clause they are referring to.

I have a PTY/LTD company, paying tax, registered with the OAIC and conduct all relevant KYC/AML/CTF checks. pic.twitter.com/DShAZPIjyi — Bitcoin Babe (@BitcoinBabeAU) December 29, 2017

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) — who are nobody’s shills — has investigated whether banks were colluding against cryptocurrency exchanges, and found no evidence this was happening.

There’s plenty of things to hate about Australian banks. But kicking dodgy crypto traders off isn’t one of them.

Update: ACX seem to be unhappy with this article. But well done, blocking me from reading your tweets while I’m logged in will definitely keep me from writing about you, and will also keep your upset customers who can’t get their cash out from forwarding your emails to me. Or perhaps it won’t.