Short answer
Exchange account freezes are stressful but usually resolvable — and what you do first matters. The first move is always: do not panic and do not create alternate accounts. Both make it worse. Contact support through official channels (in-app, official support email), comply with documentation requests, and wait. Freezes resolve fastest when cooperation is full and documentation is clean.
Three categories of freeze
Compliance hold for unusual activity. Sudden large deposit, transactions to/from a flagged address, AML scoring trigger. Exchange asks for source-of-funds documentation. Most common. Resolution: provide bank statements, employment proof, prior-trade documentation. Clean cases clear the quickest of the three.
Sanction screening hit. Your deposit transaction came from an address Chainalysis or TRM Labs flagged as connected to a sanctioned entity (for example Garantex or North Korea-linked clusters). Exchange must hold funds while investigating. Resolution: explain the legitimate source of the deposit, sometimes requires the original sender's documentation. Expect a longer wait; some cases are never resolved.
Freeze linked to a compliance report. Some freezes are connected to a report the exchange has made to the authorities about suspicious activity. In that case the exchange may not be able to tell you why the account is frozen, and it may decide to close the account. If it does, it will set out how and when the remaining balance is returned, often to the bank account the money came from or to an address you control.
What you should do
Immediately: stop trying to log in repeatedly (triggers fraud alerts). Stop trying to open a second account on the same exchange (terms-of-service violation, makes recovery harder). Do not threaten lawsuit in initial support messages (signal of bad-faith, slows resolution).
Contact support via the official in-app channel or official email (not Twitter, not third-party "recovery" services — all scams). Provide a clear, complete account of the funds: where they originated, why you transferred them, what your intent was. The first response will be a documentation request — provide everything they ask for in one batch, not in dribs.
What you should not do
Never contact "recovery" services advertised on Twitter, Reddit, or Google ads. These are always scams that take an upfront fee and disappear, or worse, ask for your private keys and drain your other wallets.
Never offer to pay support for faster resolution. Offering money to a regulated exchange's employee is bribery — it ends the case immediately and adversely.
The escalation path
If support is unresponsive after 30 days, US-regulated exchanges are accountable to: state Attorney General (for state-licensed exchanges), CFPB consumer complaint, FinRegEx if licensed under that body. A documented complaint chain usually unlocks frozen accounts faster than re-emailing support.