BitMEX Will Close Its Exchange on September 23, Ending an 11-Year Run
BitMEX, the derivatives exchange that taught a generation of crypto traders to use 100x leverage, is closing. In a notice posted on Thursday, July 23, the platform told users it will stop all exchange services on September 23, 2026, at 04:00 UTC, and that it has already stopped accepting new accounts.
The decision was made by HDR Global Trading Limited, the Seychelles-registered company that owns and operates BitMEX, following what it called a strategic review of the business, according to Cointelegraph. The company did not give a more detailed reason, and co-founder Arthur Hayes had not commented publicly as of Thursday.
The wind-down timeline
The official closure notice lays out three stages. New registrations ended immediately on July 23. From August 26 at 04:00 UTC, risk limits will apply, meaning users can reduce or close existing positions but cannot open new ones. At the closure time on September 23, any positions still open will be force closed.
BitMEX said it may close positions earlier at its discretion and will settle some thinly traded contracts ahead of schedule, with notice. It is urging customers to close positions and withdraw funds “as soon as convenient.”
Withdrawals will remain available after trading stops, and users will still be able to log in to view balances and transaction histories. Verified users who leave funds on the platform after the deadline, however, will pay a fee of 1% a year, charged monthly, and accounts holding the equivalent of $50 or less will be charged $50. Staked BMEX tokens have been unstaked and returned to holders’ accounts.
The exchange also said it expects a rush of withdrawals and that extra reviews and delays are possible, especially for bitcoin. It warned customers about phishing messages offering faster withdrawals, stating that “no such expedited service is available” and that it will never ask for private keys, seed phrases or payments. BitMEX said its proof of reserves and liabilities shows its assets exceed what it owes customers.
From market leader to also-ran
BitMEX launched in 2014, founded by Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed. Its signature product, the perpetual swap, is a futures contract with no expiry date that tracks the spot price through periodic funding payments. Combined with leverage of up to 100 times, it became one of the most traded instruments in crypto and was copied by nearly every major exchange.
At its height the platform dominated the market. In 2019, BitMEX handled more than $1 trillion in annual trading volume and roughly 57% of global crypto derivatives market share, CoinDesk reported. CoinDesk also noted that the exchange never lost customer funds to a hack or smart contract exploit.
Those numbers are long gone. Liquidity, market makers and large traders moved to venues with deeper order books and more listings, a shift that favored larger centralized rivals and decentralized derivatives platforms. Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals exchange, now ranks second by open interest behind Binance, Cointelegraph reported. Even at the top, trading has slowed: CoinGecko data cited by Cointelegraph shows perpetual futures volume on centralized exchanges fell 10% in the second quarter to $12.7 trillion.
Legal history and leadership turnover
BitMEX’s decline also tracks a long legal fight in the United States. In 2020, federal prosecutors charged its founders with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an adequate anti-money laundering program. Hayes, Delo, Reed and former head of business development Gregory Dwyer each pleaded guilty to one count in 2022 and received probation, and the founders paid $30 million in civil penalties to settle a related CFTC case. In January 2025 the company itself was fined $100 million for Bank Secrecy Act violations. Two months later, President Donald Trump pardoned Hayes, Delo, Reed and Dwyer.
The exchange has also seen heavy turnover at the top. Chief executive Stephan Lutz, chief financial officer Ina Steiner and chief growth officer Raphael Polansky left in June, according to Cointelegraph, and former general counsel and chief operating officer Peter Wilkinson is now running the company.
Why it matters
The closure of a major exchange is rare outside of a collapse, and this one appears orderly. BitMEX is giving users two months’ notice, says it holds more than it owes, and is keeping withdrawals open after trading ends. That makes it a very different event from the sudden failures of 2022, though customers with open positions should still expect forced closures if they wait too long.
The bigger signal is about where crypto derivatives trading now happens. The product BitMEX invented is more popular than ever, but the business of offering it has consolidated around a handful of large offshore exchanges and fast-growing onchain venues. An early pioneer with a recognizable brand could not hold its share against that competition.
It also closes a chapter on one of the industry’s defining enforcement cases. BitMEX’s prosecution helped establish that offshore crypto exchanges serving US customers were expected to follow US anti-money laundering rules, a principle later applied to much larger firms. The pardons removed the founders’ convictions, but they did not bring the traders back.