Crypto began with a challenge to the power of financial intermediaries. People should be able to hold and move money without a company deciding whether they are allowed to. That idea brought many of us here, and it remains the reason we are building Nimiq. We did not come here to trade bank managers for exchange executives.
The market around the crypto sector has created an establishment of its own. Centralized exchanges control access to trading. Large wallet providers decide which networks their users can conveniently reach. Projects and users become dependent on companies whose decisions they have little power to challenge.
When a wallet drops support or an exchange delists a token, the decision is often treated as a verdict on the project. The platform’s own conduct, legal standing and treatment of its users receive much less attention.
We have spent enough time accepting that imbalance. An industry willing to question the power of banks should be willing to question the power of its own intermediaries.
In Beyond the Crypto Label, we explained why Nimiq’s purpose centers on open payment infrastructure and individual control over money. Our recent experiences with Trust Wallet and MEXC show why that direction matters and why we are accelerating our work on decentralized alternatives.
Trust Wallet and the community behind the integration
Nimiq’s integration with Trust Wallet was built by community members. Community members also maintained the Nimiq node that supported it. People contributed their time, expertise and infrastructure to make an open ecosystem more useful. That work deserves better than an eviction notice from a platform they helped to build.
Trust Wallet approached us this summer with a commercial proposal of $1’900 monthly to keep Nimiq listed on their platform. We did not immediately accept or reject it and waited for them to follow up.
They did not. Instead, Trust Wallet announced that it would remove Nimiq support.
That leaves users needing another wallet and our ecosystem helping them through a transition that could have been coordinated with the people who built and maintained the integration.
Trust Wallet’s September 15 support withdrawal affects multiple networks, including Nimiq, Nano, Decred and MultiversX. Its public explanation cites product efficiency and service quality. Our experience also deserves to be part of that account: community contributions and ongoing maintenance did not secure even a follow-up discussion before support was removed.
Trust Wallet is only partially open source. It publishes components such as Wallet Core, while the company controls which networks remain available through its product. The community can contribute to the integration and maintain the node, yet still have no meaningful say in whether users can continue accessing that work.
We believe projects that benefit from open contributions owe their contributors and users better treatment. Our focus will be on fully open-source implementations and decentralized markets, where our community’s work can create lasting alternatives.
For NIM holders using Trust Wallet, we recommend Nimiq Pay as a replacement. You can use your existing 12-word recovery phrase from Trust Wallet to restore access to your Nimiq account in Nimiq Pay. Download the app through our official website and confirm that the restored NIM address matches your existing account. And always remember to keep your recovery words private! Check our tutorial on how to access your funds here!
MEXC and the double standard
As some of you may have noticed, MEXC placed NIM in its Assessment Zone at the beginning of September. Around the same time, our internal risk management team identified concerns about MEXC that have led us to end our collaboration with the exchange, effective today.
That assessment identified a mismatch between MEXC’s declared entity and the company actually operating the exchange. For projects and market makers placing assets on a platform, knowing which legal entity holds those assets and whether it is authorized to operate is fundamental.
The public regulatory record reinforces those concerns. In its May 26, 2026 notice, the Seychelles Financial Services Authority identified MX Global Ltd as MEXC’s operator and stated that it was operating without the required authorization by the regulator. MEXC Global LTD, the entity historically associated with the platform, had already been dissolved. The authority also stated that it had received no licensing application from MX Global Ltd or another applicant affiliated with MEXC.
An exchange invoking risk controls should be prepared to answer questions about its own operator and authorization. Its position as a trading venue does not give it the authority to place itself above the standards it applies to others.
If crypto is to recover its credibility, it has to confront these practices inside its own industry.
An industry-wide problem that needs addressing
These events are unfolding during a wider disruption across centralized exchanges.
CoinEx, which delisted NIM last month, has now announced an orderly shutdown of its exchange business. It cites weaker market conditions alongside increasing regulatory requirements and compliance costs.
AscendEX has also ceased operations this year, citing regulatory, financial and operational problems, including the absence of MiCA authorization and a failed transaction intended to address its liquidity needs.
Platforms that decided which projects deserved access are now struggling to keep their own businesses operating. That context matters. A delisting can reflect the circumstances of the exchange, and should not automatically be read as a judgment on the project being removed.
We expect further turbulence as exchanges confront regulatory requirements and the costs associated with meeting them. In Europe, the longest MiCA transitional period ended on July 1, 2026. Providers relying on that transition needed authorization to continue serving EU clients. Exchanges unable or unwilling to meet those requirements may restrict their services or leave markets.
Nimiq has published its MiCA whitepaper as part of our regulatory disclosure work. A project’s disclosures and an exchange’s authorization to provide services are separate responsibilities. We are addressing ours and expect exchanges to address theirs.
Our focus on decentralized markets goes hand in hand with that work. Supporting individual control over money gives us every reason to demand accountability from companies that take custody of it.
Making the gatekeepers less necessary
The recurring problem is dependence. A company controls a route to users, and the people relying on that route bear the consequences when it changes its terms, removes support or restricts withdrawals.
That concentration of power is what we are rebelling against. The crypto establishment should expect the same scrutiny that this industry has long directed at traditional finance.
Our response is to drain the gatekeepers’ power at its source: our dependence on them.
The Nimiq Bridge is in active development and is one of the team's main priorities. It will open a route to trade bridged NIM on decentralized exchanges, reducing dependence on centralized trading venues and expanding access to liquidity.
Nimiq Pay and the Nimiq Wallet already give users a way to hold and use NIM in a wallet they control. The bridge will extend their options for trading it. These developments put our commitment to individual control into tools people can use.
We acknowledge that losing a wallet integration or a trading venue still causes inconvenience. We will keep you informed about the bridge launch. We also welcome other projects and builders working on open wallets and decentralized markets to work with us.
The crypto establishment has become comfortable exercising the power this technology was supposed to distribute. We are here to put control over money where it belongs; in people’s hands, and build the gatekeepers out of the way.
Pura Vida
Team Nimiq