By Akanksha Khushi and Elizabeth Howcroft
July 23 (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, whose founders were pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump last year, said on Thursday it will shut down its operations in September and urged customers to withdraw their assets.
BitMEX did not give a reason for the closure but said in a statement on its website that the decision followed a “strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry” by its owner, Seychelles-registered HDR Global Trading.
BitMEX called on users to close their open positions and withdraw their funds before the closure on September 23.
The closure comes as crypto prices are faltering. Bitcoin has surrendered most of its gains from last year after a rally fuelled by Trump’s election to a second term fizzled out.
“The cryptocurrency exchange market is highly competitive, and the closure of BitMEX may suggest that major exchanges will continue to gain significant weight at the expense of smaller or newer exchanges,” said Thomas Probst, a research analyst at Kaiko.
But he added that BitMEX’s closure would likely have limited market impact, given its small market share. The exchange has daily trading volumes of around $400,000 and a market share of less than 0.01%, according to Kaiko data.
FOUNDERS PARDONED BY TRUMP LAST YEAR
BitMEX’s co-founders Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed pleaded guilty in 2022 to failing to implement a compliant anti-money-laundering programme.
Trump pardoned them last year. He had courted crypto donors during his campaign, promising support for crypto firms during his second term.
However, slow progress on U.S. crypto legislation and concerns over potential bitcoin selling by digital asset treasury companies have hit investor sentiment.
Prosecutors had accused BitMEX and the founders of wilfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act between 2015 and 2020 by failing to adopt anti-money-laundering and so-called “know your customer” programmes.
One of the founders, Delo, gave £4 million ($5.34 million) to Britain’s populist Reform UK party in the first quarter of 2026, official data showed.
Founded in 2014, BitMEX has more than 2 million traders on its platform, according to its website.
($1 = 0.7493 pounds)
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru and Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Sonia Cheema, Kirstin Ridley and Joe Bavier)
