Hong Kong Exchange OKEx CEO Abruptly Resigned To Start a New Life

OKEx’s boss, Chris Lee, has reportedly stepped down from his position as the Chief Executive Officer of the Cryptocurrency exchange.  Lee’s spokeswoman issued a statement that the executive wishes to start a new life.

In another statement, the spokeswoman reportedly quoted the CEO saying that it was the “greatest pleasure and an honor” to work with the crypto exchange.

In April, the exchange announced its plans to expand to Malta, given the country’s openness towards blockchain projects.

According to Coinmarketcap, the exchange is the world’s most active fee-charging cryptocurrency exchange with over $2 billion trade volume within the last 24 hours. OKEx successfully took over from Binance’s position as the largest exchange by turnover.

Before becoming the largest crypto exchange by turnover, OKEx went through a troubling period. On March 30, the exchange had a futures incident. It was reported that a group of unknown people manipulated the price of BTC quarterly futures contract, making it fall greatly below the BTC index.

While some users exploited the opportunity to manipulate the market, some sold-off their position because of fear, and it significantly pushed down the price. In order to solve the problem, rollbacks of the futures contract were implemented.

The incident led to an episode where one of the affected users visited OKEx’s head office, with a suicide threat.

The Crypto Community is Skeptic

The sudden departure of Lee has brought suspicion among figures on social media.

Alistair Milne, an entrepreneur, and a crypto investor feels the exchange was back to its dark past. “Or, perhaps they are back to their old tricks?” Milne tweet in response to Bloomberg’s report.

Another crypto enthusiast also commented: “Lee left for personal reasons, to “start a new life,” OKEx said in an emailed statement on Monday.”…start a new life in a new country with new passport and new name with new millions.”

“Lee left for personal reasons, to “start a new life,” OKEx said in an emailed statement on Monday.”…start a new life in new country with new passport and new name with new millions.

— Shooter crypto McGavin (@getderb) May 14, 2018

While Lee didn’t mention where he would go next, he said he would return to the crypto and blockchain community after spending a short break with his family.