BitMex, the crypto derivatives exchange founded by millionaire Arthur Hayes, has decided to stop its operations on September 23. The platform said the decision follows a strategic review of its business position as well as the broader crypto industry. While the timeline related to its winding down have been explained in details in the announcement, the platform did not elaborate on what exactly about its business review nudged it to shut down after being an active crypto player for the last 11 years.
BitMex, that pioneered the 100x leverage perpetual swap, has ended support for any new registrations on its platform, effective Thursday.
“The BitMEX platform has always remained grounded to the true ethos of Bitcoin – neutrality, transparency, and decentralisation. This news is a difficult one to share,” it said.
BitMex has asked its users to withdraw their assets before September 23 — failing which could make them liable to bear financial penalties by the platform,
While the exchange has presented the option to still hold user funds after September 23, it said, it would charge a monthly maintenance fee of $50 or extract a one percent levy on their assets annually.
“Failure to withdraw funds by the Closure Time will mean you have agreed to be charged that fee, and have agreed to subsequent increases in that fee (to be communicated in advance). We will continue to regularly reach out to users who have failed to withdraw their assets,” the platform noted.
BitMex was debuted in November 2014 by entrepreneur co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed. At the time, BitMex was launched with the intention of bringing technically advanced trading tools for the crypto community, which was relatively small at the time. Hayes was a banking veteran who wanted to bring derivatives, futures, and margin-trading structures to crypto trading via BitMex.
While the platform was never hit by a security breach, it did come into a major controversy in 2022. Company co-founders, back in 2022, pleaded guilty to being non-compliant with a Bank Secrecy Act — accepting that they failed to maintain adequate anti-money laundering controls.
All the three co-founders recieved probation periods ranging from 18 to 30 months with Hayes serving six months under home confinement. While each agreed to pay a $10 million criminal fine, BitMEX’s parent company paid $100 million in civil settlements.
In March last year, U.S. President Donald Trump granted BitMex co-founders a pardon.
Now that the platform is winding down their operations, it has asked its users to be alert against suspicious approaches and misinformation.
“Be vigilant for phishing attempts using this news, or promising priority or accelerated withdrawals – no such expedited service is available,” the Seychelles-based exchange said. “To ensure end-to-end safety, we will deploy additional review procedures on all withdrawals requested and may see heightened withdrawal requests being subject to network restrictions depending on the assets being withdrawn.”
Commenting on the development Hayes said, “We did something special together. Satoshi for life.”
