BitMEX Shuts Off Trading After 11 Years, Withdrawals Stay Open

BitMEX stopped trading and deposits at 04:00 UTC on Wednesday. The venue that invented the perpetual swap is shut after 11 years, and its operator, HDR Global Trading Limited, gives as the reason a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry. Withdrawals stay open through the website. The contract BitMEX built is now the most heavily traded instrument in the market, and BitMEX itself had almost none of that trade left.

The instrument outlived the venue

XBTUSD, the bitcoin perpetual BitMEX listed on 13 May 2016, was the first of its kind: a future with no expiry date, pulled back toward the spot price by a funding payment that longs and shorts make to each other. BeInCrypto reported that the contract was settled on 16 September, a week before the exchange went dark. No other outlet we checked carried that date. Every large venue runs a version of the product now, and BeInCrypto puts perpetuals above 75% of all crypto trading volume, a figure it gives without a method, so it is one account's estimate and no more. CoinDesk's framing on Wednesday was narrower and firmer: centralized crypto derivatives turned over $3.4 trillion in August alone.

Two readings of how far it fell

At the top BitMEX held about 57% of global crypto derivatives volume and cleared more than $1 trillion in a year, CoinDesk reported in July, dating that to 2019. Startup Fortune gives the same share across 2018 and 2019 together, while news.bitcoin.com says only that it was once above 50%. Where it ended is less settled. news.bitcoin.com puts BitMEX at roughly 0.08% of perpetual futures volume at the close; Startup Fortune says daily turnover had fallen near $400,000 by July and the share below 0.01%. Those are nearly an order of magnitude apart, neither outlet shows where its number came from, and they do not reconcile. Startup Fortune's explanation for the slide is its own account and nobody else's: BitMEX stayed with bitcoin-collateralized contracts while Binance, OKX and Bybit moved customers onto USDT-margined ones.

What happens to money left behind

The closure notice tells users to close open positions and withdraw funds as soon as practical. Verified users who leave a balance pay an account fee of 1% per annum, charged monthly, or USD 50 equivalent for accounts holding no more than that, and BitMEX says the rate may be raised later. CoinDesk and Startup Fortune both compress this into "$50 or 1% a year, whichever is greater," which is not the wording on the page. Accounts stay reachable for balances and transaction history, though the notice warns of extra review on all withdrawals and of blockchain delays, bitcoin especially. Positions had been winding down since 26 August, when risk limits stopped anyone opening a new one. The two months of notice began on 23 July, when BitMEX and BitMart announced shutdowns three days apart.

"Today, we share with a very heavy heart that BitMEX exchange will shut down its operations, effective 23 September 2026 at 04:00:00 UTC," the exchange told users.

Claims that outlast the platform

Closing the venue does not close what is pending against it. Celsius's bankruptcy estate sued over 6,360 bitcoin liquidated in the March 2020 crash on 12 September, 11 days before the shutdown, putting the claim at $495 million as valued at filing. CryptoSlate quotes the complaint's central allegation, that BitMEX "intentionally designed its platform and liquidation procedures to cause liquidations of collateral and defraud its own customers." The defendants had not answered when the reports were filed, and no response has been published since.

The last research BitMEX put out reads oddly now. Its Q1 2026 derivatives report argued that the growth in perpetual swaps had moved to commodities and equities, with weekly volume in those contracts at $30.7 billion against $525.8 million a year earlier, and it named BitMEX a standout of the quarter, up 1,322.6% over 90 days. That assessment is the company's own, and six months later the company is closed. Whether the instrument keeps spreading into regulated markets is being decided by other filings entirely.