Ulrich Schmidt of Rahman Ravelli details the circumstances surrounding the demise of the 12-year-old crypto exchange.
Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has stated that it will end its operations in September.
The exchange said the decision came after a "strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry" by its owner, Seychelles-registered HDR Global Trading. It has urged users to close their open positions and withdraw their funds before the closure, which will happen on September 23.
The closure comes after a decline in business operations that began in 2020 and involved regulatory issues; leading to a gradual erosion of BitMEX’s reputation and liquidity. In October that year, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused BitMEX of having largely inadequate anti-money laundering programmes. The group’s companies were fined a civil penalty of USD 100 million and BitMEX’s co-founders Benjamin Delo and Arthur Hayes pleaded guilty in 2022 to failing to implement a compliant anti-money-laundering programme. They were sentenced together with their third co-founder, Samuel Reed. In 2024, the company itself pleaded guilty and was fined a further USD 100 million.
In March 2025, the company and its co-founders were pardoned by US President Donald Trump, ending the criminal consequences of their actions. However, by the time of the pardon the commercial and reputational damage to BitMEX had been done, and it was limited to being a minor operator in the crypto market.
BitMEX, which was founded in 2014, has more than two million traders on its platform, according to its website. Its closure will not have a huge effect on the crypto sector as its market share was less than 0.01% and its daily trading volumes were around $400,000.
The end of BitMEX could, however, be a sign of market consolidation and that the smaller exchanges are less likely than the bigger ones to survive a downturn in crypto’s fortunes.
