Cobo will charge 2% monthly on coins left in its closing app

Cobo will shut its Cobo Wallet app at midnight Dec. 1 Cobo time (UTC+8), 11 a.m. ET Nov. 30, and charge anyone who leaves coins behind 2% of their balance every month, with a minimum of $100. Accounts worth less than $100 will be emptied in a single deduction, so small holders who miss the deadline lose everything left in the app.

The deadline is 23:59 on Nov. 30 in UTC+8, which is 10:59 a.m. ET that day. Cobo says users who do not withdraw by then "will be deemed to have agreed to this fee arrangement."

Only the app is closing. Cobo, which sells custody and wallet technology to businesses, says its "other businesses are not affected and will continue to operate as normal." The notice gives the reason as a "strategic business adjustment."

Why Cobo can charge at all

Cobo can take a fee from these balances because it holds them. A custodial wallet is one where the company, not the user, controls the keys that move the coins.

Cobo's own terms of service for the app, last updated Nov. 14, 2018, describe the service as "providing custodial wallet services for crypto currencies via the Cobo Wallet." Those terms name Cobo Global Limited, which gives a Grand Cayman address and applies Cayman Islands law, as the provider. They also say "Cobo may discontinue or change any product or service described in or offered on the Sites at any time."

The app has not always been custodial in every mode. A 2021 version of Cobo's product page described two options: a "Cloud Wallet" with free transfers between Cobo Wallet users, and an "HD Wallet" in which users "take full control of your assets and private keys." The notice addresses assets "in your account," and Cobo has not said whether any of it affects HD Wallet users.

How the fee works

After the app closes, Cobo will charge a "monthly account management fee" of 2% of remaining assets.

The fee comes out of the coins themselves. Cobo will deduct 2% of each token "in the respective tokens," with no conversion into dollars.

The $100 floor is measured in dollars. If 2% of an account is worth less than $100, Cobo will take $100 instead, split across tokens by value. Cobo says it will price assets using CoinMarketCap at the time of collection. That is Cobo's chosen method, and the notice does not say what happens if prices are missing.

Cobo gives three examples. An account with 1 BTC and 10 ETH loses 0.02 BTC and 0.2 ETH a month. An account with 1,000 USDT, a dollar stablecoin, pays 100 USDT because 2% would be only 20. An account with 60 USDT loses all 60.

The charges repeat. Cobo says fees "will continue to be charged until all remaining assets have been withdrawn or fully deducted." At $100 a month, a balance near the floor is gone within months.

The deadline in plain time

The table below converts Cobo's UTC+8 dates into ET. Daylight saving time ends in the US on Nov. 1, so these late-year conversions use ET's winter offset of five hours behind UTC.

The practical reading is that US users have until late morning on Nov. 30, not midnight. The first charge lands on New Year's Eve in New York.

One more step for miners and traders

Cobo also asks users to update any Cobo Wallet address saved on "any exchange, mining pool or other platform." Coins sent to those addresses after the shutdown would arrive in an account that no longer serves users.

The notice warns users about impersonators. It says Cobo staff will never ask for a seed phrase or private key and that Cobo offers no "paid expedited withdrawal" service.

The wider lesson from 2022

Anyone who leaves coins with an app depends on that app's terms. Those terms decide who owns the coins and what the company may do when it stops serving customers.

Celsius showed how much that can matter. In a Jan. 4, 2023 opinion, Chief Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn ruled that under Celsius's "unambiguous Terms of Use," crypto deposited in its Earn accounts "became Celsius's property."

FTX's terms read the other way. A December 2022 complaint by non-US FTX.com customers quoted the exchange's terms of service: "Title to your Digital Assets shall at all times remain with you and shall not transfer to FTX Trading." That language was the customers' basis for claiming their assets, and the complaint is an argument, not a ruling.

In Le Coin's view, Cobo's case is milder but follows the same thread. No one has alleged that Cobo misused customer assets, and Cobo is giving users six weeks to leave. The fee shows how a custodian can set new terms on the way out and treat silence as consent.

What is not yet known

Cobo has not said how many people still use the app or how much crypto remains in it.

The notice does not say whether the 2018 terms are still the governing agreement, or which clause permits the new fee.

Cobo has not said whether HD Wallet users, who held their own keys, are affected.

The notice does not say whether users will also be told by email or in the app.

It does not explain what happens to tokens CoinMarketCap does not price.

Sources

1. Cobo, "Announcement on the Discontinuation of the Cobo Wallet App and Asset Withdrawal Arrangements," Oct. 16, 2026: https://www.cobo.com/post/Cobo-Wallet-2026-10-15-1406
2. Cobo Global Limited, Cobo Wallet terms of service, last updated Nov. 14, 2018: https://webview.cobo.com/internal/des/toc?locale=en
3. Cobo, Cobo Wallet product page, archived Jan. 23, 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210123040149/https://cobo.com/wallet
4. In re Celsius Network LLC, No. 22-10964 (MG), Memorandum Opinion and Order Regarding Ownership of Earn Account Assets (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2023): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.312902/gov.uscourts.nysb.312902.1822.0.pdf
5. Ad Hoc Committee of Non-US Customers of FTX.com v. FTX Trading Ltd., Adv. Proc. No. 22-50514 (JTD), Complaint (Bankr. D. Del. Dec. 28, 2022): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.deb.188803/gov.uscourts.deb.188803.1.0.pdf

Holding the Corner.

Not financial advice.