The exchange that invented the 100x leverage perpetual swap — the instrument the entire crypto derivatives market still runs on — is shutting itself down. BitMEX says it will cease operations on September 23 at 04:00 UTC, almost exactly eleven years after it launched.
New account sign-ups are already closed. Starting August 26, users will only be able to reduce positions, not open new ones, and anything still open at the deadline gets force-closed by the exchange. Verified customers who don't withdraw in time face a custody fee of at least $50 or 1% a year, charged monthly.
The stated reason is a "strategic review of the business." No hack, no regulatory order — the company says it never lost a cent of customer funds to hackers in eleven years.
BitMEX's history isn't spotless, though. In 2022 its founders — Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed — pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations after running the exchange for years without a real anti-money-laundering program. Trump pardoned the company, all three founders and former executive Gregory Dwyer in March 2025. So a freshly pardoned exchange is now closing on its own terms, with no outside pressure in sight.
While BitMEX stood still, the market it created kept growing: Binance, Bybit and OKX now offer the same perpetual contracts with even more leverage, and they've absorbed most of the pioneer's customers along the way. Hayes hasn't commented — his last post on X is dated July 16, a week before the announcement.
