Cryptocurrency Exchange BitMEX faces a $100 million penalty for breaching US banking regulations. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued the verdict, which also sentenced BitMEX’s parent business, HDR Global Trading Limited, to two years of unsupervised probation.
The decision follows the company’s guilty plea in 2024 to accusations of operating without an adequate Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). BitMEX’s earlier attempts to dismiss the allegations as “old news” failed, as the court decided that the company’s previous settlements and penalties did not absolve it of responsibility for its failure to comply.
The United States Attorney’s Office accused BitMEX of brazenly violating the BSA by failing to adopt Know Your Customer (KYC) standards and instead relying entirely on email addresses for user identification. Despite the company’s efforts to downplay the new penalties, it accepts the decision as part of its larger legal obligations.
This decision brings an end to years of criminal and civil litigation against the exchange and its founders. In 2022, BitMEX co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, along with a senior employee, Gregory Dwyer, received separate probationary sentences for their roles in the company’s regulatory infractions. Earlier agreements with US regulators, including the CFTC and FinCEN, compelled BitMEX to pay a total of $100 million in 2021.
The current sentence is the result of several years’ worth of legal activity. It emphasizes the changing regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency platforms and the significance of following compliance measures as the digital asset market expands.
