BitMEX to shut down permanently 11 years after Arthur Hayes co-founded crypto exchange

BitMEX will permanently shut down its exchange on Sept. 23, ending an 11-year run for the platform that introduced the 100x leverage perpetual swap.

The exchange had been looking for a buyer since February 2025, when it retained Broadhaven Capital Partners to run a sale process. The board of HDR Global Trading Limited, the exchange's owner and operator, reached the decision after a strategic review of the business and the wider crypto industry, according to a Thursday announcement. New account registrations stopped immediately.

Arthur Hayes co-founded BitMEX in 2014 with a stated mission of opening professional-grade crypto derivatives to retail traders. The perpetual swap the exchange built has since become the most traded product in crypto, adopted across thousands of venues.

BitMEX pleaded guilty in 2024 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act over an inadequate anti-money laundering program, and was hit with an additional $100 million fine in January 2025. President Donald Trump pardoned the co-founders in March 2025.

Unwind protocol

Users have two months to unwind. BitMEX will apply risk limits from Aug. 26 at 04:00 UTC that block new positions and permit reduce-only trades, and the exchange will force close remaining open positions ahead of the shutdown to wind down the market in an orderly fashion. Anything still open at the closure time will be force-closed immediately.

The exchange said it takes no responsibility for trading losses stemming from a user's inability to close positions before the deadline. All staked BMEX tokens have been unstaked and returned to holder accounts.

KYC'd users who fail to withdraw by the closure time will be charged a monthly account fee of $50 equivalent or 1% per annum, whichever is greater, on remaining balances. That fee can rise over time, with advance notice, for accounts that stay funded.

Withdrawals will still function after the closure time, and users will retain login access to view balances and transaction history. BitMEX flagged potential processing delays tied to network conditions, pointing to Bitcoin block confirmation times that can run up to an hour and constrain throughput from its fixed pool of addresses.

The exchange warned users to watch for phishing attempts exploiting the wind-down, and said no expedited or priority withdrawal service exists.

BitMEX said assets exceed liabilities per its Proof of Reserves and Liabilities page, and that it has lost zero customer funds to hacks across its full operating history.

BitMEX did not disclose what the strategic review found, or whether the sale process that began last year produced a bidder.