BitMEX account holders continued to push their bitcoins from the derivatives platform on October 2, as the fifth cryptocurrency derivatives platform pledged to contest accusations in court. The bitcoin’s efflux from the platform comes after a whole range of accusations against the Seychelles-based crypto derivatives exchange.
The latest statistics from on-chain data platform Glassnodes suggests that account holders have pulled out up to 40,000 bitcoins worth approximately $420 million since the news of AML violations broke out on October 1.
#Bitcoin outflows from BITMEX addresses continue – our data shows that in the past hour another 7.200 BTC were withdrawn.
The total amount pulled from the exchange over the past day is now nearly 40,000 $BTC.
Live chart: https://t.co/jlunNHscY3 pic.twitter.com/i0jtdjBtqG
— glassnode (@glassnode) October 2, 2020
BitMex bitcoin efflux reaches $420 million
According to Glassnodes, BitMEX’s BTC reserves held approximately 170,000 BTC worth about $1.85 billion before the accusations.
In the meantime, major crypto exchanges, Binance and U.S.-based Gemini exchanges, appear to be the beneficiaries of BitMEX’s woes. Huobi and OKex closely follow them. More than 20,000 BTC from BitMEX have found their way into these four crypto exchanges.
This is not the initial time BitMEX has caused waves in the cryptocurrency industry in recent times. BitMEX recently shocked its clients after a blackout that prevented its account holders from accessing their funds on black Thursday. In the half-year duration between that scandal and the recent one, account holders pulled out more than 100,000 BTC. In comparison, the withdrawal scale during the last three days after news broke of AML violations has been on another level.
Owners promise to battle allegations
The creators of BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, Reed, and Delo and the head of business development Gregory Dwyer were arrested on October 1 on accounts of breaching the Bank Secrecy Act. Federal attorney accused the executives on the grounds of conspiracy to infringe the Bank Secrecy Act for having weak anti-money laundering measures.
In a civil claim filed by the CFTC against BitMEX, the founders operated the crypto derivatives exchange firm as a non-registered trading platform, in addition to inadequate AML measures. However, BitMEX strongly dismissed the accusations and pledged to contest the indictments legally.
