HONG KONG / GLOBAL — Cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx released its May 2026 monthly proof-of-reserves (PoR) report this week, the latest in a continuous series the exchange has published every month since 2022. The disclosure shows reserve ratios of at least 100 percent — meaning total on-chain assets held by the exchange equal or exceed total customer balances — across each of its four largest customer-asset categories: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC).
According to the May report, CoinEx’s Bitcoin reserve ratio came in at 101.30 percent, Ether at 102.10 percent, Tether at 100.05 percent, and USD Coin at 102.80 percent. The exchange publishes the report on the first business day of each month covering balances as of the last day of the prior month, and pairs each release with a Merkle-tree verification tool that allows individual users to confirm their own balance was included in the snapshot.
What proof of reserves actually proves
Proof-of-reserves attestations became a baseline trust signal across the cryptocurrency industry following the collapse of FTX in November 2022, when more than $8 billion in customer funds were found to be missing. In the years since, every major exchange that wants institutional and large-retail business has been pressured to publish at minimum a Merkle-tree snapshot of liabilities (customer balances) alongside on-chain wallet attestations of assets.
The Merkle-tree mechanism works by hashing each customer’s balance into a tree structure whose root hash is published publicly. An individual user receives a verification path showing their account was a leaf node in the tree, without exposing any other user’s data. The on-chain side proves the exchange controls wallets containing at least the sum of all leaf balances — through signed messages from those wallets at the snapshot block.
What it does not prove
Industry analysts and academic researchers consistently note three limitations of proof-of-reserves as currently practiced: (1) it does not capture off-balance-sheet liabilities like loans the exchange has taken against customer assets, (2) it is a point-in-time snapshot that can be staged using temporarily borrowed assets and reversed the next day, and (3) it doesn’t independently verify the customer-side liability count — an exchange could omit specific accounts from the tree.
CoinEx’s monthly cadence partially addresses limitation (2) by requiring sustained reserves month after month, and the exchange has retained an external auditor for the underlying methodology, though it does not commission a full financial-statement audit of the type major U.S.-regulated entities undergo.
Why monthly PoR matters in mid-2026
The May 2026 release lands in a market environment where regulatory and consumer attention on exchange solvency has re-intensified. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have both opened new comment periods on custody rules for digital-asset platforms, and several state attorneys general are pursuing enforcement actions against exchanges that have failed to publish current attestations. Continuous monthly disclosure has become a competitive differentiator for exchanges courting U.S. customers, even ones that don’t operate U.S.-licensed entities.
Verifying your own balance
CoinEx users can verify their inclusion in the May 2026 snapshot via the exchange’s PoR verification tool, which requires a logged-in session and produces the Merkle path from the user’s account hash to the published root hash. The exchange recommends users perform this verification each month as part of normal account hygiene.
Cryptocurrency exchanges remain higher-risk venues regardless of attestation status. Users holding amounts larger than they’re willing to lose are commonly advised to move long-term holdings to self-custody hardware wallets and use exchanges only for active trading.
