BitMEX hit with 622.66 BTC class action on the same day it announces September shutdown

BitMEX is facing a class action in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York over allegations that it engineered customer liquidations to seize traders’ Bitcoin collateral. For high-risk payment and crypto operators, the useful part is not the courtroom drama; it is the familiar combination of leveraged trading, forced liquidations, and a platform shutdown announcement landing at the same time.

1. On Thursday, BKX Services Inc. and David Namdar filed the complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs say they lost a combined 622.66 BTC through forced liquidations on BitMEX, with BKX claiming losses of at least 305.81 BTC and Namdar alleging losses exceeding 316.85 BTC.
2. The complaint alleges that BitMEX “deliberately developed a system that profited from the liquidations.” According to the filing, an internal trading desk had access to private customer information and could keep trading during server freezes that prevented ordinary users from accessing or closing positions.
3. The lawsuit says BitMEX let customers trade with leverage of up to 100 times their collateral and then automatically liquidated positions while collateral was still allegedly worth twice the losses incurred. The remaining BTC was then placed into the platform’s insurance fund, which the plaintiffs say allowed BitMEX to profit from forced liquidations.
4. The plaintiffs are seeking the return of the allegedly withheld Bitcoin, plus compensatory and punitive damages. They aim to represent US customers who bought BTC swap products in transactions dating back to July 23, 2018.
5. The filing also points to a 2020 class action brought by Brett Messieh and other traders over similar conduct. That case, which raised Commodity Exchange Act claims, was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on June 30, 2025.

The timing matters. BitMEX announced on the same day that it would close after 11 years of operation, with services set to stop on Sept. 23 after a strategic review by its owner, HDR Global Trading. It has already stopped accepting new registrations and plans to block new positions from Aug. 26; the announcement was followed by a roughly 90% plunge in the BMEX utility token.