BitMEX is closing for good. The exchange announced Thursday that it will go permanently offline on September 23 at 04:00 UTC, ending an eleven-year run that began when co-founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed launched the platform in 2014. New account registrations stopped immediately, and the company is telling every customer to close open positions and pull out funds well before the deadline.
HDR Global Trading Limited, BitMEX's owner, cited a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto market as the reason for the decision. No buyer was announced, though the exchange had reportedly been shopping itself since early 2025 and had already lost its CEO, CFO and head of growth within recent weeks.
The wind-down runs on a tight schedule. Starting August 26 at 04:00 UTC, BitMEX will impose risk limits that prevent any new positions from being opened. From that point only reduce-only trades will be permitted, and the exchange will begin force-closing open contracts to unwind the order book in an orderly manner. Any position still open when the doors shut on September 23 gets force-closed on the spot, and BitMEX made clear that traders absorb any resulting losses themselves if they miss the cutoff.
KYC-verified users who leave assets sitting on the platform past the shutdown date will be charged a monthly fee equal to $50 or 1% per year, whichever turns out to be larger. BitMEX also confirmed it has unstaked all BMEX tokens, making them immediately available in holder accounts. Login access will remain active after the shutdown so users can still check balances and process withdrawals. The company specifically warned users to ignore any phishing schemes promising faster payouts, stating that no such expedited service exists.
The closure marks the end of a platform that genuinely reshaped crypto trading. BitMEX built the 100x use perpetual swap, a product now responsible for the largest trading volumes in the entire crypto derivatives market. The exchange's later years were rougher: it pleaded guilty in 2024 to a Bank Secrecy Act violation, and its co-founders received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in 2025.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Crypto trading involves significant risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results.
