BitMEX | Crypto

The complaint claims BitMEX designed a system to retain customer collateral and alleges an internal desk accessed private user data during server freezes.

BitMEX completed a review of its business and will close on Sept. 23, telling customers to close their positions and withdraw funds before then. The announcement came with no balance-sheet hole, withdrawal freeze, or bankruptcy filing, with Kaiko data putting BitMEX's market share below 0.01% and its daily volume near $400,000. That combination makes BitMEX's […] The post BitMEX shuts down without an FTX style crisis, revealing where crypto’s real danger has moved appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The proposed class action alleges BitMEX used privileged trading access and server freezes to profit from forced liquidations. BitMEX is facing a class action lawsuit accusing the crypto derivatives platform of fraudulently engineering customer liquidations to seize traders’ Bitcoin collateral.  On Thursday, BKX Services Inc. and David Namdar filed the complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs allege they lost a combined 622.66 BTC through forced liquidations on BitMEX, with BKX claiming losses of at least 305.81 BTC and Namdar alleging losses exceeding 316.85 BTC.  The lawsuit revives long-running allegations about the platform’s internal trading operations and liquidation engine and comes just as the exchange is preparing to close in September.  Read more

BitMEX will have removed 65 derivative contracts and trading pairs in July, compared with just 19 across the first six months of the year. Crypto exchange BitMEX accelerated its delisting of derivative contracts and trading pairs in July due to “insufficient trading interest,” offering a glimpse at declining activity on the platform surrounding its decision to wind down the exchange. BitMEX’s website shows that in early July, it delisted 21 derivative contracts; two weeks later, BitMEX delisted nine spot pairs for lack of trading interest. On Thursday, BitMEX added another 35 derivative contracts to the queue for delisting, totaling 65 delistings in July. Related: BitMEX to shut down after 11 years in crypto derivatives Read more

BitMEX’s shutdown marks the end of one of crypto’s earliest derivatives exchanges as analysts point to rising regulatory costs, market concentration and the shift toward licensed trading venues. The closure of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX is prompting fresh questions about whether the industry is entering a new phase of consolidation, as analysts point to market-share concentration and rising regulatory costs squeezing smaller platforms. While BitMEX helped pioneer perpetual swaps that became a cornerstone of digital asset derivatives trading, its daily Bitcoin futures volume began declining around May 2021 and never recovered to its 2020 daily peak of between $1 billion and $5 billion, according to data from CryptoQuant. Restructuring adviser Roshan Dharia told Cointelegraph the exchange’s demise reflects structural pressures facing mid-sized centralized exchanges, where liquidity has increasingly concentrated among the industry’s largest players and regulatory compliance costs continue to rise. He sai...

Reduce-only trading begins Aug. 26, with forced closes possible before exchange services end Sept. 23. The post BitMEX shutdown gives traders 2 months to withdraw, but active positions face an earlier deadline appeared first on CryptoSlate.

BitMEX’s BMEX token plunged about 90% after the exchange announced plans to shut down, ending nearly 12 years in business as its Bitcoin futures market share shrank. [Update, 15:18 UTC, July 23 - Adds comment from cofounder beginning in sixth paragraph.] BitMEX’s utility token lost almost all of its value after the exchange announced Thursday it would wind down operations. The BitMEX (BMEX) token plunged 90% to as low as $0.002 from $0.06, according to CoinGecko data. It traded at $0.0063 at the time of writing. Read more

BitMEX, co-founded by Arthur Hayes in 2014, redefined the global crypto market by introducing the 100x leverage perpetual swap.

BitMEX announced it will shut down operations on Sept. 23, 2026, after owner HDR Global Trading Limited decided to close the crypto exchange. BitMEX, one of the pioneers of cryptocurrency derivatives trading, announced it will shut down operations after owner and operator HDR Global Trading Limited decided to close the company following a strategic review. BitMEX announced Thursday that it will stop exchange services on Sept. 23, 2026, at 04:00 UTC and urged users to close positions and withdraw funds before the deadline. “We want to reassure you that your assets remain fully safe and under your control during this transition period,” BitMEX said in a statement to users. Read more

BitMEX has partnered with Zodia Custody to enable institutional crypto derivatives trading via off-exchange collateral held in segregated custody. BitMEX, a derivatives-focused cryptocurrency exchange, said it has secured a custody partner to enable asset segregation and trading with off-exchange assets. The company announced Tuesday a partnership with Zodia Custody to allow traders to access derivatives while keeping collateral in segregated custody. The integration is immediately accessible via Interchange, Zodia Custody’s off-venue settlement solution. BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz told Cointelegraph the move reflects lessons from past market failures, including the FTX collapse and the $1.4 billion Bybit hack, which exposed risks tied to unsegregated or compromised exchange-held funds. Read more

Ben Delo paid a $10 million fine after pleading guilty to US banking violations in 2022 and was granted a pardon by President Donald Trump in March 2025. BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo pledged 20 million British pounds ($27 million) to the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (LIMS), ranking among the largest private donations ever made to a United Kingdom research institution outside Oxford and Cambridge, British magazine Times Higher Education reported on Tuesday. The commitment includes $13.3 million upfront and $13.3 million to be released once the Mayfair-based institute matches the amount through additional fundraising, Times Higher Education reported. The gift launches a wider campaign aimed at building an $80 million endowment to secure LIMS’ long-term future, per the report. “I would like to see LIMS winning Fields Medals and Nobel Prizes – they are already doing some world-class things and I want to help,” Delo told the magazine. Read more

BitMEX says the era of easy money via arbitrage trades likely died in the October crash, as a liquidation spiral left many market makers naked. The massive crypto crash in October decimated market makers, ending an era where crypto traders were able to make easy money, says crypto exchange BitMEX. The crash between Oct. 10 and 11 wiped out $20 billion in the “most destructive event for sophisticated market makers in crypto history,” BitMEX said in its State of Crypto Perpetual Swaps in 2025 report released on Thursday. A feedback loop of auto-deleveraging, where exchanges liquidate profitable, leveraged positions to cover themselves and prevent further losses, broke the market makers’ “‘safe’ delta-neutral strategies,” forcing them to pull liquidity and leave orderbooks at multi-year lows, BitMEX said. Read more

BitMEX is rolling out 24/7 Equity Perps that use crypto as collateral for exposure to major US stocks and indexes, as exchanges from Bitget to Kraken race to bring equities onchain. BitMEX is expanding beyond crypto-native markets with the launch of Equity Perps, a new line of perpetual swap contracts that provide 24/7, crypto‑collateralized exposure to major US stocks and indexes like Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. The product mirrors the role perpetual swaps played in reshaping crypto markets with non-expiring, funding‑rate‑based, highly leveraged exposure — now applied to equities that have traditionally been confined to limited market hours. The move comes as onchain access to equities is showing signs of traction. Bitget recently reported that cumulative spot trading volume for tokenized stocks on its platform had surpassed $1 billion, with roughly 95% of that volume generated in December alone, driven in part by surging demand fo...

The fund, to be run by Arthur Hayes and two associates, reportedly plans to use $40 million to $75 million for each acquisition of up to six crypto companies. Maelstrom, the family office connected to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, is reportedly looking to raise $250 million for a private equity fund aimed at acquiring crypto companies. According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, the fund plans to use $40 million to $75 million for each acquisition of as many as six crypto companies, with funding expected to be completed by September 2026. Maelstrom will reportedly focus on companies offering trading infrastructure and analytics platforms. Maelstrom co-founder and managing partner Akshat Vaidya reportedly said investors in the fund “want exposure to the high-cash flow, high-growth crypto sector but lack the capabilities in-house to do this themselves.” Vaidya will reportedly run the fund with Hayes and Adam Schlegel, a new partner at Maelstrom. Read more

The analysis by the BitMEX security researchers revealed amateur-level operational security lapses in the Lazarus Group's hacker network. The BitMEX crypto exchange’s security team discovered gaps in the operational security of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean (DPRK) government-sponsored cybercrime network, following a counter-operations probe into the organization, which exposed IP addresses, a database, and tracking algorithms used by the malicious group. Security researchers for the exchange say there is a strong likelihood that at least one hacker accidentally revealed his true IP address, which showed the actual location of the hacker to be in Jiaxing, China. Additionally, the BitMEX researchers say they were also able to gain access to an instance of the Supabase database, a platform for easily deploying databases with simple interfaces for applications, used by the hacking group. Read more

The analysis by the BitMEX security researchers revealed amateur-level operational security lapses in the Lazarus Group’s hacker network. The BitMEX crypto exchange’s security team discovered gaps in the operational security of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean (DPRK) government-sponsored cybercrime network, following a counter-operations probe into the organization, which exposed IP addresses, a database, and tracking algorithms used by the malicious group. Security researchers for the exchange say there is a strong likelihood that at least one hacker accidentally revealed his true IP address, which showed the actual location of the hacker to be in Jiaxing, China. Additionally, the BitMEX researchers say they were also able to gain access to an instance of the Supabase database, a platform for easily deploying databases with simple interfaces for applications, used by the hacking group. Read more