BitMEX exposes customers' email addresses; Deputy COO says it affected the 'majority' of users

Cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX today sent a mass email to its users with their email addresses in the "To" field, affecting their privacy.

Confirming the issue, BitMEX announced Friday that it is “aware that some of our users have received a general user update email earlier today, which contained the email addresses of other users.”

A Twitter user with the handle @sakuraricebird shared screenshots of the email, which shows several email IDs of BitMEX’s customers.

“The privacy of our users is a top priority and we are very sorry for the concern this has caused to our users,” said BitMEX, adding that it is looking into the matter to identify the root cause.

After the publication of this story, Vivien Khoo, deputy COO of BitMEX, told The Block that the email was sent to “the majority of our users, however not all were affected,” adding that the issue occurred due to "an error in the software script used to send the emails.”

Khoo further said that no other personal data or account information has been disclosed.

Earlier today, BitMEX announced that it is updating weights of its indices on Nov. 22 to ensure the reference prices more closely reflect the market consensus.

Taking the opportunity, BitMEX rival Binance posted on Twitter that if BitMEX's affected users also have an account with Binance under the same email address, they should consider changing their email addresses immediately. Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, on the other hand,  advised customers to use unique email addresses and passwords for each exchange and to use a password manager. 

UPDATE: This story was updated to include comments from Vivien Khoo, deputy COO of BitMEX.