$420 Million in Bitcoin Flees BitMEX Following Federal Charges

The Bitcoin exodus from BitMEX continued Friday afternoon as traders continued to withdraw funds from the world’s fifth-largest crypto derivatives exchange. The move follows a series of charges laid out against the firm by federal prosecutors in New York. 

Updated figures from analytics firm Glassnode shows that traders have withdrawn almost double the amount Decrypt reported earlier this morning, for a total of nearly 40,000 BTC since the case was announced Thursday. That’s around $420 million worth of Bitcoin at today’s prices.

Glassnode previously announced that about 23,200 BTC, or $243 million, was withdrawn from BitMEX in a single hour, which the data firm called the largest hourly outflow they have seen from the exchange to date. 

About 170,000 in Bitcoin or $1.8 billion, had been held in the BitMex wallets, according to Glassnode.

Further, open positions on Bitcoin futures contracts on BitMEX have taken a 20% hit, according to data from analytics firm Skew, since news of the indictment broke.

Founders Author Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed as well as executive Gregory Dwyer were indicted on charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering provisions. Reed was arrested in Massachusetts. 

Manhattan federal prosecutors on Thursday charged BitMEX executives with conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged in a civil complaint that Hayes, Delo and Reed as well as five entities, operated BitMEX as an unregistered trading platform as well as failed to implement anti-money laundering procedures.

BitMEX denied the charges in a Thursday blogpost and vowed to vigorously defend against the allegations in court.