BitMEX Says It's 'Business as Usual' Despite 30% Drop in Bitcoin Balance After CFTC, DOJ Action

Oct 7, 2020 at 15:48 UTCUpdated Oct 7, 2020 at 15:57 UTC.One week after charges brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice, nearly 30% of BitMEX's bitcoin balance has been withdrawn by customers.

A spokesperson for the derivatives exchange told CoinDesk that, despite the significant withdrawals, "It is business as usual for the BitMEX platform."

Total BTC held on BitMEX addresses dropped from 192,986 BTC on Sept. 30 to 135,619 BTC Tuesday, according to data provided by Coin Metrics, a 29.73% decline.

Aggregate open interest for BitMEX BTC futures also took a hit in the past week, falling by over $100 million from $732 million on Sept. 30.The "Fundamentals" of the exchange "Remain strong," however, according the a spokesperson, specifically BitMEX's "Resilient open interest and liquidity."

On-chain transaction data reviewed by CoinDesk suggests that much of the withdrawn coins were deposited to addresses at Binance, which also prohibits American users, and U.S.-based Gemini and Kraken.

Even though customers are withdrawing coins, one BitMEX balance that is not shrinking is the exchanges' Insurance Fund, a pool of funds nominally used to prevent auto-deleveraging of traders' positions.

Since Thursday, the fund has grown by nearly 20 BTC to 36,588 BTC, by far the largest insurance fund of any cryptocurrency derivatives exchange.

The Seychelles-based business consistently ranks fourth by 24-hour volume and second by open interest, according to bitcoin futures data from Skew.Disclosure.