2020 for BitMEX in numbers

The extreme market selloff on March 13, 2020, during which Bitcoin briefly went below $4,000 on some exchanges, coincided with an alleged DDoS attack on BitMEX. The alleged DDoS attack resulted in BitMEX’s platform not being widely available and a record amount of $1.6 billion in liquidations. Notably, March 13 also marked the all-time high of BitMEX’s exchange Bitcoin holdings — at 315,651 BTC. While the March 13 incident already resulted in a substantial move of users away from BitMEX, this process was drawn out over several weeks.

Furthermore, on October 1, 2020, it was publicized that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed charges against crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX and its owner-operators, including co-founder and CEO Arthur Hayes. Besides changes in leadership, the lawsuit has had a direct impact on BitMEX’s exchange Bitcoin holdings, as well as has led to a further decline in the relevance of BitMEX for the wider cryptocurrency markets.