BitMEX, the platform that originally introduced those high-leverage Bitcoin derivatives now central to crypto markets, is closing as a long-lasting slump disrupts the sector.
HDR Global Trading Ltd., the firm that owns BitMEX, revealed via a Thursday blog entry that the exchange will start ceasing activities and intends to shut down by September 23. According to the announcement, no new user registrations are being accepted.
Arthur Hayes, a former equities trader at Citigroup, co-founded BitMEX in 2014 with Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, and the exchange revolutionized crypto trading by bringing perpetual futures to the market, enabling leverage of up to 100 times on Bitcoin. These instruments, commonly called perps, lack a settlement date and rely on a funding-rate system to keep their price aligned with the underlying asset.
As the originator of this trading product, BitMEX set the benchmark for leveraged crypto speculation, drawing a worldwide user base eager for high-risk, high-reward opportunities. Its funding-rate mechanism became the blueprint later adopted by nearly every major derivatives exchange.
Today, perps represent the vast bulk of global crypto derivatives volume, with exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Hyperliquid constructing operations around the product that BitMEX created. They have also expanded beyond digital currencies into markets including oil and equities.
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During the height of the crypto surge from 2017 to 2020, BitMEX ranked among the world's biggest crypto exchanges. In June 2019, Hayes tweeted that the platform had processed $1 trillion in trading volume during the prior twelve months. As the top crypto derivatives venue, it became emblematic of high-stakes Bitcoin speculation.
As a consequence, Hayes became one of crypto's most recognized figures - and his market insights remain widely followed by many traders.
The exchange's market leadership started declining in 2020, following allegations from U.S. authorities that BitMEX and its founders breached the Bank Secrecy Act due to insufficient anti-money-laundering safeguards. In 2022, Hayes and his co-founders entered guilty pleas and consented to surrender $10 million apiece. Subsequently, BitMEX consented to a $100 million settlement.
Yet during the week when BitMEX's penalty payment was scheduled last year, Donald Trump, then President, granted a pardon to the company - a rare step for a contemporary U.S. president - and to its founders. The trio had exited the firm in 2020.
Prior to the pardon, in January 2025 BitMEX launched a swap product tied to Trump's memecoin; that memecoin was involved in a business initiative that generated $636 million for the president the prior year. A few weeks later, Hayes published an essay portraying the president's memecoin adoption as a move that would enhance political accountability.
For BitMEX, however, the harm was irreversible. Customers departed during the exchange's legal battles, and the firm never recovered its former prominence.
At the same time, the cryptocurrency market plunged into a deep slump following a steep decline last October. Bitcoin's value dropped over 50% from its all-time high exceeding $126,000, then made a slight recovery in recent weeks. Bigger competitors like Binance, which had surpassed BitMEX in trade volume years earlier, managed the downturn more effectively.
Fresh decentralized perpetual futures services, including Hyperliquid, attracted users by charging reduced fees, thus gaining market share in derivatives.
In recent months, BitMEX has seen a wave of executive departures, with CEO Stephan Lutz, Chief Growth Officer Raphael Polansky, and CFO Ina Steiner all leaving the firm last month.
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