Phemex

Phemex is a crypto exchange founded in Singapore in 2019 by Jack Tao, a former Morgan Stanley vice president of electronic trading, along with several ex-Morgan Stanley colleagues. The pitch from day one was a professional-grade trading engine built by people who had worked on institutional trading desks. The exchange says it now serves more than 10 million registered users worldwide, though independently audited volume figures are not published.

Phemex operates through multiple corporate entities rather than a single regulator. Phemex Ltd is registered as a money services business with FinCEN in the United States, and a separate entity holds a virtual asset service provider registration in Lithuania. Neither an MSB registration nor a Lithuanian VASP listing is a full financial license: both are registration regimes with lighter oversight than a license from a securities or banking regulator. Phemex holds no license from a top-tier regulator, and it does not accept US customers despite the FinCEN registration.

In January 2025, Phemex detected unauthorized activity in its hot wallets and froze deposits and withdrawals. Blockchain analytics firms later put total losses at roughly $69 to $73 million drained across sixteen blockchains. Security researchers noted similarities to prior exploits linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group, though attribution was not confirmed by Phemex itself.

Phemex said cold wallet holdings were unaffected and published a proof-of-reserves link shortly after the incident. Withdrawals were restored in stages over the following days, with all withdrawal services back online by early February 2025, and Phemex committed to covering user losses itself. This was one of the largest exchange hacks of 2025, and it happened at a platform already operating without a tier-one license, which is worth weighing against any promotional offer.

Phemex offers spot trading across several hundred pairs, USDT-margined and coin-margined perpetual contracts with leverage, copy trading, and an Earn section with savings products. Standard spot fees are 0.1% for both makers and takers, dropping at higher volume tiers. Perpetual contract fees run around 0.01% maker against roughly 0.06% taker, scaled by a VIP tier system, with an extra discount for paying fees in Phemex's own token.

Phemex markets its new-user rewards on a Rewards Hub under a banner advertising up to 15,000 USDT. The reality for a typical new user is two Newcomer Welcome Gifts: a first deposit of at least 100 USDT unlocks a Mystery Box listed at 10 to 2,000 USDT, and a first trade of at least 100 USDT unlocks one listed at 20 to 3,000 USDT. The contents are random, so the low end of each range, about 30 USDT combined, is what most people should expect. Most of the banner figure comes from a separate Deposit and Trading Challenge whose entry rung already needs a 500 USDT net deposit plus 2,000 USDT of spot or 10,000 USDT of futures volume.

What you can withdraw depends on the box. Cash and airdropped BTC behave like ordinary balance, but a trading bonus can only be used in futures, covers 50% of fees and losses and is never withdrawable itself; only realized profit is, and withdrawing that profit removes the remaining bonus. Fee vouchers only refund trading fees you actually pay. The newcomer tasks run on a countdown of about 7 days, and bonuses and vouchers expire 7 days after you claim them. Earlier versions of the offer included access to an xPT pre-mining pool, which the current package no longer lists.

Phemex does not require identity verification to open an account or make limited withdrawals, but unverified accounts are capped, commonly cited around $50,000 in crypto withdrawals per day. Completing verification raises those limits substantially, and Advanced KYC is required for the welcome gifts and other promotions.

The exchange blocks the United States, the United Kingdom and dozens of other jurisdictions from full platform access, and additionally restricts fiat on- and off-ramp services in a further list of countries. Given the January 2025 hack and the absence of tier-one oversight, treat balances held on Phemex, including unclaimed bonus vouchers, the same way you would treat funds on any offshore exchange: withdraw down to what you are actively trading with.