ASIC has brought civil proceedings to court against a former director of Blockchain Global, Liang Guo, relating to multiple breaches of his duties in the cryptocurrency exchange platform Blockchain Global. The former director is accused of misusing ACX customer funds totaling over $20 million.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission announced Wednesday proceedings against Liang Guo for allegedly misusing user funds and failing to keep proper financial records. He was also accused of making misleading statements while serving as director at Blockchain Global Ltd.
ASIC probes Australia’s non-defunct cryptocurrency exchange
ASIC has filed a civil case against Blockchain Global's former director Allan Guo for alleged misconduct involving ACX Exchange, which collapsed in 2019. Claims include misuse of customer funds and false financial records. With $37.7M owed to creditors, this highlights ongoing…
— SunLumi (@Girl_SunLumi) May 28, 2025
The Australian crypto exchange, now in liquidation, froze withdrawals in late 2019 and ultimately left over $20 million in claims from former customers. ASIC’s lawsuit culminates a years-long probe into one of Australia’s earliest and most damaging crypto exchange collapses.
The crypto exchange collapsed in 2019 after customers could not withdraw funds or digital assets from their ACX Exchange accounts. Liquidators were later appointed to Blockchain Global on 11 February 2022. In November 2023, the liquidators released a report to ASIC with creditors showing potential breaches of the Corporations Act by current and former officials of Blockchain Global, including former director Guo.
Liquidators revealed that as of October 2023, the crypto exchange had more than $58.6 million owed to unsecured creditors. They also found that roughly $22.7 million were unsecured creditor claims from former ACX exchange customers.
The Australian regulator launched its formal investigation into the exchange’s collapse in 2024. The country’s Federal Court also imposed interim travel restrictions on Guo weeks later in a bid to prevent him from leaving the country as investigations into the company’s collapse continue. After the travel ban expired on August 20, the former director of the exchange fled the country on September 23 and has not returned.
Justice Catherine Button, who presided over the case, noted that the ASIC accused Guo of diverting $1.69 million from an account designated for ACX Exchange investors to personal investments. He was also accused of transferring 21.11 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $1.3 million, to a private wallet under his control.
ASIC investigates other officials from Blockchain Global
Liquidator Andrew Yeo of Pitcher Partners found in an October 2023 report to ASIC and creditors that customer funds were co-mingled with company money and redirected into related entities. The scheme reflected former global exchange FTX’s misuse of customer funds, where billions were allegedly diverted to its affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research, without user consent.
The former director at Blockchain Global told liquidators that wallet credentials for the exchange’s crypto holdings, worth several million dollars, were lost when his laptop was stolen in China in 2019. The incident was first reported in December 2021, but no police report was ever filed to substantiate the claim.
Apart from Guo, other company directors, including Xue Lee and Zijang Xu, are under investigation for violations of corporate law. The duo is believed to be outside Australia, which makes Guo the primary focus within the country for the potential recovery of misappropriated funds.
“The level of fraud here is staggering. Whether it’s cryptocurrency fraud or any other financial fraud, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This office and our law enforcement partners will hold perpetrators accountable for these and other fraud schemes.”
–Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.
In a related case, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Lee on January 29 with involvement in a $1.89 billion cryptocurrency fraud scheme under the HyperTech umbrella. The SEC charged Lee with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud as part of a larger crackdown on fraudulent activities within the crypto market.
Court documents showed that from June 2020 to November 2022, Lee and his co-conspirators allegedly offered and sold investment contracts to the public through HyperFund’s online investment platform, which turned out to be false.
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