What is with Bitmex????

[wwzsocki]

Looks like fake news because the Bitmex website is still working and trading ongoing.

But would be great to have some more info on this, for sure will impact prices across all markets and as we can see BTC is going down already!

https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/1311694266389929986

Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Hayes, Delo, Reed and BitMEX head of business development Greg Dwyer with violating the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the DOJ press release, Reed was arrested in Massachusetts on Thursday morning "and will be presented in federal court there."

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/79483/cftc-bitmex-charges-lawsuit

[1714036654]

1714036654

[1714036654]

1714036654

[mr.relax]

https://www.coindesk.com/bitmex-cftc-enforcement
I still have full access to the Bitmex site. The Logo you showed does not appear. Everything is fine.
Read the article above with info, whats happening there.

[Indymoney]

Looks like fake news because the Bitmex website is still working and trading ongoing.

But would be great to have some more info on this, for sure will impact the rice and as we can see BTC is going down already!

https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/1311694266389929986

Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Hayes, Delo, Reed and BitMEX head of business development Greg Dwyer with violating the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the DOJ press release, Reed was arrested in Massachusetts on Thursday morning "and will be presented in federal court there."

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/79483/cftc-bitmex-charges-lawsuit

For better response from members of this community move this thread to Services Discussion Exchanges section https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=223.0  I also check its working ok but on social media something happening may be they are doing some investigation or any other related to this exchange.

[wwzsocki]

For better response from members of this community move this thread to Services Discussion Exchanges section...

Thanks for this suggestion, of course, you are right, but I have published this thread here on purpose.
I don't want to make too much noise and to spread this too much, because it's already used for market manipulation and has impact on the crypto market as a whole.

I see many different versions of this news published across all social media channels and biggest crypto media outlets at the same time.
Ranging from an ongoing investigation, to even such info that Bitmex CTO Reed is already in jail, as you can see in the quote in my OP, ending on fake Bitmex exchange seizure screens, spreading on Twitter like crazy. This will cause panic and already has, don't want to help in this but hard to not talk about this when we are involved in crypto, especially here on Bitcointalk forum.

I wanted to make the community aware but don't cause panic and fuel more hype for this, all interested members will find it finally and if not let it be and fade away in the Bitcointalk abyss  

[hosseinimr93]

Yes, the website is working fine and without any problem. They are even allowing people to make withdrawals faster than before.
Below is the announcement made by Bitmex.

United States CFTC & DOJ Filing

In the meantime, the BitMEX platform is operating entirely as normal and all funds are safe. To allay any potential customer concerns, pending withdrawal requests were processed at 17:45 UTC, in line with our standard procedures. We will process another off-cycle withdrawal at 08:00 UTC, 02 Oct 2020, and then 13:00 UTC, as usual.

[nutildah]

For better response from members of this community move this thread to Services Discussion Exchanges section...

Thanks for this suggestion, of course, you are right, but I have published this thread here on purpose.
I don't want to make too much noise and to spread this too much, because it's already used for market manipulation and has impact on the crypto market as a whole.

The funny thing about BitMEX is they don't actually exchange anything. You can only deposit BTC there and withdrawal BTC from there. You give them your BTC and they give you "fun tokens" which you can then cash out for BTC when you're done playing their games. So I wouldn't leave this topic in this thread, nor would I be concerned about dropping the price of BTC by having it in other sections.

[wwzsocki]

...among the table of top traders were found U.S. residents...they were sued for lack of registration of commodity exchange trading futures.

I only wonder how they found all these top BiTmax traders with no KYC/AML data?

Pretty scarry and alarming to be honest.

Mass withdraws began...already deduced 20% of the exchange balance..

Yes, I expected this to happen.

No matter what BiTmex will do people are losing confidence in them and will withdraw, to be honest, I think this is only the beginning and the snowball effect will be only bigger with every new day. People are afraid and they are totally right that finally all BiTmex owners will end up in jail and no matter how many additional withdrawals they will offer this will not change what people think right now.

[figmentofmyass]

Looks like fake news because the Bitmex website is still working and trading ongoing.

this press release looks pretty real to me: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8270-20

i'm sure the feds could seize the domain if they wanted to---it's a .com domain. they may not have because they didn't wanna look impotent, since there is no way to get their hands on bitmex's wallets. filing charges and arresting one of the owners is the DOJ's way of prodding bitmex into voluntarily dealing with them.

crazy times. the wild west era really is coming to an end. i guess this is why bitmex was rolling out mandatory KYC. they felt the walls closing in.

[LordShanken]

The accusations are that they knowingly allowed money laundering.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/technology/bitmex-bitcoin-criminal-charges.html

As the New York Times writes, it is about company registered in Hong Kong. I suspect it is external Market Maker.

The case will be about proving that they allowed it with full awareness. But in my opinion, if the prosecution makes such information public, they already have very good evidence of it. The judgment in this case is only a matter of time.

[Darker45]

I am not a lawyer but I wonder how could one country legally seize a domain of a company which is governed by the separate laws of a different sovereign country?

We know that BitMex is legally registered under the laws of the Republic of Seychelles and is mainly operating from Hong Kong. We also know that the services of BitMex are not offered to the citizens of the United States. With all these information, is it legally valid that the USA filed civil and criminal cases against the entity and its top officers, respectively, for violations of the US Bank Secrecy Act, in particular their failure to gather personal identity information of their users as well as the information of their transactions? I mean, can a certain company registered in one county be sued under the laws of another country?

If there are Americans found to be trading on BitMex then they're the ones who should be charged under the laws of the USA. BitMex could be charged but only according to the laws of Seychelles under which it is governed.

[wwzsocki]

Looks like fake news because the Bitmex website is still working and trading ongoing.

this press release looks pretty real to me: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8270-20

As you can see I was talking about the domain seizure, especially the screen you can see which was and is obviously not the truth.
Additionally, at the time of writing there was a lot of different news coming out, so I wanted to be transparent as possible with the community and not spread false info.

I think this the biggest mistake we can do as a community when such news popup is to spread them further without proper checking, causing only more panic and harm to the market.
This happened already many times and these bad forces behind, count on this and do everything to go viral.

My advice is to take it always easy and think twice before posting because it could look like a great topic for a thread and real info but without even knowing it you are the tool in their hands causing chaos they count on.

[LordShanken]

Looks like fake news because the Bitmex website is still working and trading ongoing.

this press release looks pretty real to me: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8270-20

As you can see I was talking about the domain seizure, especially the screen you can see which was and is obviously not the truth.
Additionally, at the time of writing there was a lot of different news coming out, so I wanted to be transparent as possible with the community to not spread false info.

I think this the biggest mistake we can do as a community when such news popup is to spread them further without proper checking, causing only more panic and harm to the market.
This happened already many times and these bad forces behind, count on this and do everything to go viral.

My advice is to take it always easy and think twice before posting because it could look like a great topic for a thread and real info but without even knowing it you are the tool in their hands causing chaos they count on.

From your statement, I assume that you saw something disturbing and you reacted.
Something happened, it's true, but I don't understand why talk about it as something incorrect ?! This is what the forum is for! So that people talk to each other, help each other and verify the facts.

Take it easy!

[Tytanowy Janusz]

I am not a lawyer but I wonder how could one country legally seize a domain of a company which is governed by the separate laws of a different sovereign country?

We know that BitMex is legally registered under the laws of the Republic of Seychelles and is mainly operating from Hong Kong. We also know that the services of BitMex are not offered to the citizens of the United States. With all these information, is it legally valid that the USA filed civil and criminal cases against the entity and its top officers, respectively, for violations of the US Bank Secrecy Act, in particular their failure to gather personal identity information of their users as well as the information of their transactions? I mean, can a certain company registered in one county be sued under the laws of another country?

If there are Americans found to be trading on BitMex then they're the ones who should be charged under the laws of the USA. BitMex could be charged but only according to the laws of Seychelles under which it is governed.

Yea that's the most funny part to me too. Looks like US thinks that US law = international law. And US can go around the world and jail anyone they want. Jail CEO of company registred in Seychelles and operating from Hong Kong only because few of US citizens were using Bitmex on their own free will. Can you imagine this shit from other country - not US? A small village in Africa creates a law that it's citizens can't use facebook, few of them used facebook, so Mark Zuckerberg is going to jain. What a nonsense.

Money laundering? As someone mentioned before they were accepting BTC deposits and BTC withdrawals. So what money laundering we are talking about if BTC is not a currency according to US law (Bitcoin is generally not considered legal tender.). So basically speaking bitmex was only accepting deposits and withdrawals of collectables. I've never heard about law that prohibits collectables laundering.

[Darker45]

~snip~

Yea that's the most funny part to me too. Looks like US thinks that US law = international law. And US can go around the world and jail anyone they want. Jail CEO of company registred in Seychelles and operating from Hong Kong only because few of US citizens were using Bitmex on their own free will. Can you imagine this shit from other country - not US? A small village in Africa creates a law that it's citizens can't use facebook, few of them used facebook, so Mark Zuckerberg is going to jain. What a nonsense.

Money laundering? As someone mentioned before they were accepting BTC deposits and BTC withdrawals. So what money laundering we are talking about if BTC is not a currency according to US law (Bitcoin is generally not considered legal tender.). So basically speaking bitmex was only accepting deposits and withdrawals of collectables. I've never heard about law that prohibits collectables laundering.

Unfortunately, that has always been the case. The US has this superiority complex which makes them think they are the standard of everything. They constantly meddle with domestic affairs of other independent countries because they want to impose their own set of principles, lifestyle, beliefs, and so on and so forth. I can even notice this to ordinary American citizens. When non-Americans go to America, they need to behave like Americans, but when Americans go to foreign countries they want others to adjust to however they are comfortable.

Crypto companies, however large they may be, should take this BitMex harassment as a very stern warning. They are not vulnerable from US suppression regardless of where they are legally licensed, where they operate, under which laws they are governed, and so on. This is Uncle Sam saying, "you can ran but you can never hide."

[exstasie]

Yea that's the most funny part to me too. Looks like US thinks that US law = international law. And US can go around the world and jail anyone they want.

Why not? They did it with Alexander Vinnik, owner of BTC-e. Same principle. It was just more straightforward, practically and legally, to go after their bank accounts. In this situation, they can't freeze or seize any money.

They already have one of Bitmex's owners in jail. Sadly I do not see anyone coming to his rescue.

Jail CEO of company registred in Seychelles and operating from Hong Kong only because few of US citizens were using Bitmex on their own free will.

Hayes shouldn't have taunted the US authorities, bragging about how easy it is to bribe Seychelles regulators and how easy it is to get around Bitmex's AML/KYC controls with a VPN.

I think this is a message to all the companies hiding in the Seychelles and avoiding mandatory KYC. Binance, Poloniex, etc.

Money laundering? As someone mentioned before they were accepting BTC deposits and BTC withdrawals. So what money laundering we are talking about if BTC is not a currency according to US law (Bitcoin is generally not considered legal tender.). So basically speaking bitmex was only accepting deposits and withdrawals of collectables. I've never heard about law that prohibits collectables laundering.

If collectibles are used as part of a money laundering scheme, it's still money laundering. Money laundering is about the act of concealing the source of illegal proceeds, not about whether the scheme employs legal tender. Legal tender status just means it must be accepted as payment of debts and taxes. Fincen has made clear that it applies its money laundering regulations to centralized exchanges, whether or not fiat money is involved.

https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/new-fincen-guidance-affirms-its-longstanding-regulatory-framework-virtual

[nutildah]

filing charges and arresting one of the owners is the DOJ's way of prodding bitmex into voluntarily dealing with them.

Hayes shouldn't have taunted the US authorities, bragging about how easy it is to bribe Seychelles regulators and how easy it is to get around Bitmex's AML/KYC controls with a VPN.

Yes, You are right here.

Ultimately, BitMEX contributed very little to the Bitcoin ecosystem. They were more or less just a casino pretending to be an exchange. I won't feel bad if they get shut down completely as they offered very little value to actual traders... As I said initially, you can't actually trade anything for anything there. It's just a video game where you get rewarded Fun Tickets if you win the game, which are then redeemable for BTC. That part of "bitcoin culture" needs to disappear entirely if actual bitcoiners (not Arthur) want not only regulators but the general public worldwide to take them seriously.

[figmentofmyass]

I am not a lawyer but I wonder how could one country legally seize a domain of a company which is governed by the separate laws of a different sovereign country?

bitmex operates from a .com domain, which is managed by verisign, who consistently obeys takedown requests from the USA government. the domain could easily be seized if they wanted.

We also know that the services of BitMex are not offered to the citizens of the United States. With all these information, is it legally valid that the USA filed civil and criminal cases against the entity and its top officers, respectively, for violations of the US Bank Secrecy Act, in particular their failure to gather personal identity information of their users as well as the information of their transactions?

the question is whether they offered services to USA customers. just because they put it in their terms doesn't really mean anything. whether they actually enforced those terms, and whether IP address alone is sufficient to determine customer location, are what matters. that's what this case is about.

If there are Americans found to be trading on BitMex then they're the ones who should be charged under the laws of the USA.

it's not illegal for USA customers to trade on bitmex. it is illegal for bitmex to offer its services to USA customers. big difference.

[exstasie]

Ultimately, BitMEX contributed very little to the Bitcoin ecosystem. They were more or less just a casino pretending to be an exchange. I won't feel bad if they get shut down completely as they offered very little value to actual traders... As I said initially, you can't actually trade anything for anything there. It's just a video game where you get rewarded Fun Tickets if you win the game, which are then redeemable for BTC. That part of "bitcoin culture" needs to disappear entirely if actual bitcoiners (not Arthur) want not only regulators but the general public worldwide to take them seriously.

I don't think we can get rid of speculators. They come with the territory. You can't have a game changing form of money in limited supply and expect it to not be volatile. And with a volatile asset, you can't expect traders to stay away. It's all very natural and organic in my view.

I agree that Bitmex has contributed very little to the ecosystem. In fact, their once daily withdrawal scheme has consistently driven up network fees for a long time. Not to mention all the traders they have screwed over with their laggy, unresponsive platform. I left a long time ago.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

I don't think we can get rid of speculators. They come with the territory. You can't have a game changing form of money in limited supply and expect it to not be volatile. And with a volatile asset, you can't expect traders to stay away. It's all very natural and organic in my view.

I agree that Bitmex has contributed very little to the ecosystem. In fact, their once daily withdrawal scheme has consistently driven up network fees for a long time. Not to mention all the traders they have screwed over with their laggy, unresponsive platform. I left a long time ago.

I agree.

Each market participant is valuableh, no matter what his purpose is. Investor/trader/speculant/market maker/gambler.

There is no volume without traders/speculators. There is no liquidity without volume. Without liquidity there are no inwestors (10% slippage will scare out most of big investors)


I dare to say that without speculators asset would be much more volatile because of no liquidity. Bitmex was the biggest BTC/USD market for quite a while and i'm sure that, despite gamblers, there were also a lot of market makers that was using Bitmex liquidity to hedge their positions from other crypto exchanges.

[wwzsocki]

I still keep wondering how they get all these data on all involved U.S citizens?

Of course, there will be quite a few who used VPN but a shitty one or did nothing more to protect themselves because after so many years they became lazy.

Still, they need at least some confirmation from the source Bittrex, without such data, it could be probably not possible to sue all these people and Bitmex because they will have no clue on the volumes, amounts of money involved by each individual and at all.

Nobody is saying this but for me, it's just obvious that there has to be somebody working with the agency from the Bitmex stuff or there was a leak or other data breach.

Bitmex never worked with the U.S agencies, so they had to get their hands on real data somehow, which can be verified and confirmed that are authentical, only insider job is what comes to my mind.

So, if this is true then this is pretty scary, what is your opinion on that?