Recent exchange liquidations have pushed exchange safety back into focus, and users can verify more than many think before opening an account. In a market analysis piece, BlockTempo says four public indicators deserve a close look: reserves, security ratings, regulatory compliance, and liquidity.
The article opens with BitMart, which has operated for nearly nine years. In late July, the exchange announced an "orderly liquidation," immediately halted new registrations, deposits, and new orders, will stop all trading services on Aug. 26, and plans to close بالكامل on Jan. 31, 2027.
BlockTempo says the wording in the announcement did not match what users were seeing. On-chain data showed severe withdrawal congestion, including one stretch of eight straight hours with no withdrawal requests processed, and some community members said large amounts of funds could not be withdrawn. By the time users start asking whether assets are safe, the report argues, it is often already too late.
Against that backdrop, the article breaks exchange due diligence into four industry-standard dimensions that can be checked for free through third-party data. It uses Toobit, a derivatives exchange founded in 2022, to show what those disclosures look like in practice.
Proof of reserves
The first metric is proof of reserves, or PoR. BlockTempo traces its rise to the trust crisis that followed the collapse of FTX in 2022, when customer balances shown on exchange ledgers did not necessarily mean the platform held equivalent assets.
Under a PoR framework, an exchange hires a third-party auditor to review wallet holdings and compare them with total customer liabilities on the books, producing a reserve ratio to show whether coverage reaches 100%. Those disclosures are often posted on an exchange website and can also be checked against listings on platforms such as CoinMarketCap.
For Toobit, the report points to the latest PoR audit completed by security auditor Hacken in May 2026. It says reserve ratios stood at 106% for BTC, ETH, and USDT, while USDC was at 102%. All four major assets were above the 100% threshold.
Security ratings and infrastructure
Reserves answer one question: whether the money is there. The next one is whether the platform can keep it safe.
BlockTempo cites CER.live as a widely used exchange security ratings provider in crypto. The firm scores exchanges on more than 18 factors, including server security, user security, penetration testing records, and bug bounty programs.
According to the article, Toobit received a AAA rating from CER.live in May 2026 and ranked among the world’s top 10 safest exchanges. It scored full marks in four subcategories: server security, user security, penetration testing, and bug bounty management.
The article also says Toobit holds ISO 27001 certification for information security management. In 2025, Hacken conducted penetration testing on the exchange’s iOS and Android apps. The company has stated that no security incident has occurred since its founding in 2022.
On user protection, Toobit has a $40 million Shield Fund that automatically compensates users for losses caused by internal technical or security failures at the platform. For custody, it uses a mix of cold storage and multi-signature controls, with Fireblocks MPC technology included in the custody setup.
Regulatory footprint
The third metric is regulatory registration and licensing. BlockTempo is clear that licenses do not guarantee an exchange will not fail. FTX held licenses in some jurisdictions as well. Even so, the number of licenses and the regions involved can show how much outside scrutiny a platform is willing to accept and how transparent its operations are.
The article notes that users can check those claims directly on regulator websites instead of relying only on exchange statements. It says Toobit holds a virtual asset service provider, or VASP, license issued by Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority, KNF, and describes that as aligned with European Union standards. It also says the exchange is registered as a money services business, or MSB, in the United States and Canada, and as a digital currency exchange, or DCE, with Australia’s AUSTRAC.
Liquidity and market depth
The fourth metric is liquidity. The article says weak liquidity may not be obvious in normal market conditions, but stress periods can quickly widen spreads and produce sharp wick moves that push stop-loss orders or liquidation prices away from fair market levels.
Users can check 24-hour trading volume and order book depth for free on platforms such as CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. Citing CoinGecko data, BlockTempo says Toobit posts roughly $17.5 billion in 24-hour futures volume and offers more than 750 trading pairs.
Why no single metric is enough
BlockTempo also warns against treating any one metric as a guarantee that nothing can go wrong.
PoR is only a snapshot. Passing an audit at one moment does not mean a platform will still meet the same standard the next moment, and PoR does not reveal the full picture of an exchange’s liabilities or leveraged positions. The article describes that as an industry-wide problem rather than an issue unique to one venue.
It makes a similar point on exchanges without mandatory KYC. Lower onboarding friction and lower data leak risk come with a trade-off: regulators may face greater difficulty tracing activity after the fact.
The piece adds that Toobit, like many peers, is a private company and does not publish financial statements. Outsiders can only estimate its operating scale through indirect indicators such as trading volume and active users, which is fundamentally different from the disclosure standards of public companies.
Cross-checking is the practical defense for retail users
The lesson BlockTempo draws from the BitMart case is simple. Once an exchange runs into real trouble, retail users have limited room to act. If withdrawal queues are jammed and an "orderly" process still leaves hours-long gaps in withdrawal handling, checking safety at that stage is unlikely to help.
The article closes by saying that reserve ratios, third-party security scores, regulatory registrations, and market liquidity cannot stand alone as final answers. Looked at together, though, they give users a more grounded basis for deciding where to open an account.