This morning, IDAX exchange froze withdrawals and deposits after reporting that the Global CEO has been missing for days. IDAX didn’t go into any further explanation about why funds were frozen, but it is implied that the Global CEO would be able to withdrawal users money at will.

The situation could also be related to China cracking down on crypto exchanges, as IDAX stopped serving Chinese customers last week and it is a China based exchange.

After the news settled, we noticed that IDAX volume is still increasing on their website, by seemingly 1 trillion dollars every 10 minutes. It is possible that they have a ticker inaccurately summarizing their average volume and forgot to turn it off, or it can be a sign that funds aren’t actually frozen.

DeFi fans have taken advantage of this occurrence to vocalize how risky it is to leave money on centralized exchanges.

“The disappearance of the CEO of Chinese crypto exchange IDAX shed a light on the ever-growing problem of crypto exchange centralization,” Cryptoslate tweeted.

By now, “exit scam” is becoming unfortunately common terminology in the crypto space, especially with the looming threat of BitMEX being investigated by U.S. regulators. Exchanges that don’t comply with government regulations simply can’t be held accountable to the same extent that TD Ameritrade would be, which is why decentralization can be so appealing when it comes to crypto exchanges.

In reality, the chances of TD Ameritrade exit scamming is much less likely than any crypto exchange that doesn’t require KYC. Anyone can start a crypto exchange, and for all users know, there might be language in an agreement that can allow them to close the exchange and take all of the funds. Obviously, with enough evidence a scammer would be taken down, but this Global CEO disappeared, just like anyone else could.