According to Chainalysis economist Philip Gradwell, 32,000 BTC were withdrawn from the BitMEX exchange within 24 hours after the American regulator was accused.
Yesterday, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX, accusing it of illegally doing business in the US, as well as violating KYC and AML rules. As a result, the bitcoin rate fell by 5%. The fall in the rate was also influenced by the arrest of BitMEX technical director Samuel Reed.
Users began to massively withdraw bitcoins from the exchange, so the site had to process withdrawal requests outside of the usual schedule. According to Gradwell, within 24 hours after the CFTC allegations became known, 32,000 BTC worth about $ 335 million were withdrawn from the exchange.
Some of the withdrawn bitcoins are redirected to Binance, Gemini, OKEx and other cryptocurrency exchanges, the rest to users’ personal wallets or lesser-known services. However, according to CoinMetrics, users have withdrawn over 37,000 BTC (about $ 387 million) from BitMEX. Firms attributed this to the fact that they receive data from different sources.
Gradwell reported that there are between 135,000 and 170,000 BTC remaining on BitMEX to date. This suggests that many users of the site decided not to withdraw cryptocurrency from it.
According to the research department of The Block, there is no sharp decline in the volume of traders’ active positions (OI – open interest). Bitcoin perpetual OI declined 16% to $ 627 million. Compared to Ethereum’s open interest rate, it fell 37% ($ 103 million).
The owners of the BitMEX exchange strongly disagree with the CFTC charges and intend to vigorously challenge them.
