BitMEX Ends Trading After 11 Years, Withdrawals Still Open

BitMEX, the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange that once handled more than half the world's crypto derivatives trading, permanently stopped all trading and deposits at 04:00 UTC on September 23, 2026, after more than 11 years in operation. Withdrawals remain open so remaining customers can retrieve their funds, but the exchange will cut off automated API withdrawals on September 28 and will start charging monthly fees on balances left behind.

What happened, according to BitMEX and CoinTelegraph

BitMEX officially ended exchange operations after more than 11 years, while withdrawals remain open as the crypto derivatives platform urges users to remove their funds. The shutdown was not a surprise: BitMEX originally announced the closure on July 23, when it said it would cease exchange services on Sept. 23 after more than 11 years of operations. In its own announcement, the exchange's owner and operator said the decision followed an internal review: Following a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry, the board of HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of BitMEX, has decided to close the exchange.

BitMEX has been explicit that the closure is not tied to a hack or an active enforcement action against the exchange itself. According to the company's own closure FAQ, the decision didn't come from financial distress, hacks, or immediate regulatory pressure. Still, the timing overlaps with fresh litigation: CoinTelegraph reported that the closure comes days after the Celsius bankruptcy estate sued five BitMEX-linked companies, alleging fraud, market manipulation and wrongful liquidations tied to 6,360 Bitcoin during the March 2020 market crash. That lawsuit is an allegation made in a bankruptcy proceeding rather than a finding of wrongdoing, and BitMEX has not been reported as linking it to the closure decision.

From dominant venue to a marginal exchange

BitMEX's decline did not happen suddenly. The exchange, founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, built its business on the perpetual swap, a leveraged futures-like contract with no expiry date that it introduced to the market and that competitors later replicated industry-wide. At its peak, reporting from Startup Fortune put BitMEX's share of global crypto derivatives volume at 57% in 2018 and 2019, a period in which the platform ran more than a trillion dollars a year through its books. By the time of the September 2026 closure, the same reporting put daily trading volume at roughly $400,000, a figure also referenced by Kaiko exchange data cited in other closure coverage, as rivals including Bybit, Binance, OKX and Hyperliquid took over the leverage-trading market BitMEX had created.

In between, the company absorbed a major U.S. regulatory penalty. In 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network settled civil charges against the BitMEX entities for operating an unregistered derivatives platform accessible to U.S. customers and for anti-money-laundering failures dating to 2014. The CFTC's press release states the case was resolved "through a consent order entered on August 10, 2021, that incorporated a $100 million civil monetary penalty and injunctions against future violations of the CEA and CFTC regulations." The three co-founders separately paid $10 million each in individual penalties under a later consent order, before receiving a presidential pardon in 2025. BitMEX also reportedly sought a buyer at a valuation near $1 billion in the months before the closure decision but did not complete a sale, according to crypto.news and CoinCentral reporting on the wind-down.

What this means if you still have money on BitMEX

Anyone with an open BitMEX account should treat the current window as the practical deadline for getting funds out at no extra cost. Per the exchange's own support documentation, API withdrawals will be disabled: Withdrawals via the BitMEX API, including institutional integrations like Fireblocks and Copper, will no longer be supported starting September 28, 2026, which means anyone using automated withdrawal tools needs to switch to the standard website interface before that date. Any account that remains verified (KYC-complete) and holds a balance after the closure will be charged a custody fee of $50 a month or 1% of the balance annualized, whichever is larger, deducted automatically from the remaining funds. Accounts below the minimum withdrawal threshold for a given asset may not be able to move small balances at all, since the platform's withdrawal system rejects transfers under that floor even if the fee itself could otherwise be covered.

What is not established by any of the sources reviewed here is the total dollar value of customer funds still on the platform at closure, or how many account holders had already withdrawn before the deadline. BitMEX has repeatedly stated that no customer funds have been lost to hacking over its history and that reserves match liabilities, but that claim comes from the company's own proof-of-reserves disclosures rather than an independent audit cited in the reporting reviewed for this article.

What happens next

The next confirmed date on BitMEX's own closure timeline is September 28, 2026, when API-based withdrawals stop working and all fund transfers must go through the website. Beyond that, BitMEX has not published a date on which it will stop holding customer balances altogether, meaning the monthly custody fee could, in principle, continue indefinitely for accounts that are never emptied.