BitMEX Faces New Lawsuit Alleging Insider Trading and Market Manipulation
BitMEX is facing another lawsuit alleging insider trading and market manipulation. The proposed class action claims that the exchange's co-founders operated a secret trading desk in 2018, using customer data to engineer liquidations.
The plaintiffs allege that BitMEX's hidden trading desk used software to pinpoint price moves that would force the most customer liquidations, then traded to push prices to those exact levels. The desk allegedly had access to customer account data, hidden orders, and liquidation points, despite BitMEX assuring users that this information stayed private.
The second allegation centers on March 13, 2020, when users lost access to the platform for about 25 minutes as BitMEX force-closed roughly $800 million in leveraged positions. The exchange initially blamed a cloud hardware failure, then later claimed it was due to two DDoS attacks.
BitMEX CEO Peter Wilkinson dismissed the allegations as 'spurious and opportunistic' with 'no basis whatsoever.' He stated that BitMEX has successfully defended against similar claims in the past and is ready to do so again. The plaintiffs are seeking return of actual Bitcoin rather than cash damages, with estimated aggregate claims above $5 million.