According to BlockBeats, BitMEX was officially founded in 2014 by legendary trader Arthur Hayes and co-founders Ben Delo and Samuel Reed. In the cryptocurrency trading field, BitMEX was once the most influential player, especially in the derivatives trading market, where it was once an industry leader. It rapidly rose to prominence by pioneering 100x leverage perpetual contracts, becoming the world's largest cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform at one point, with daily trading volume reaching tens of billions of dollars, and profoundly driving the development of the perpetual contract market. However, its high-leverage model, offshore operations, and lax KYC/AML policies have also been accompanied by long-term regulatory controversies.
"312" Market-Saving Moment: Starting at 6:30 PM on March 12, 2020, cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, suddenly plummeted, catching everyone off guard. Price charts on trading software flashed incessantly as Bitcoin's price, starting at $7,000, fell without resistance, shattering all hopes and plummeting nearly 50% within 24 hours. BitMEX, the trading platform with the largest short positions at the time, suspended its trading function on the morning of the 13th, a move commonly known as "pulling the plug." In a sense, this saved Bitcoin. During the relentless decline, there were no buy orders on BitMEX; without the plug, Bitcoin's price on that platform would have reached zero. Meanwhile, other trading platforms were also in chaos, with arbitrage bots exceeding their operational limits, and price differences between platforms reaching as high as $1,000.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) indicted Hayes and other co-founders of BitMEX on charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and failing to establish an effective anti-money laundering system, alleging that BitMEX illegally provided services to U.S. users. On April 7, 2021, former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes surrendered to U.S. authorities in Hawaii. Hayes was tried by a federal judge in Hawaii and released on $10 million bail, flying out of the United States after serving a six-month house arrest sentence. Subsequently, BitMEX completed a comprehensive KYC reform, the founding team members resigned or pleaded guilty, and the platform's market share continued to shrink as competitors such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX rose, gradually replacing its leading position in the industry.
In early 2025, sources reported that BitMEX was seeking a sale and had hired investment bank Broadhaven Capital Partners to assist with the sale in late 2024.
In 2026, BitMEX announced that it would officially shut down its trading platform on September 23, ending its 12-year operation. As the pioneer of perpetual contracts, BitMEX propelled the crypto derivatives market into a phase of rapid development and became an important microcosm of the crypto industry's transition from a regulatory vacuum to a compliant era. Its rise and fall reflects the development trajectory of the entire industry.