Six years after the March 2020 crash, the Celsius bankruptcy estate is suing BitMEX in New York for about 6,360 BTC. BitMEX’s operator has since issued its own claim against Celsius in London. The estate alleges that BitMEX controlled the prices used to trigger liquidations as well as running the liquidation engine and the insurance fund. The dispute tests how far an exchange in that position can rely on its own rules when a customer says those rules were worked against it.
The number I would put first in this case is 24 per cent. The Celsius estate says that during the March 2020 crash some of BitMEX’s liquidation sell orders went onto its book more than 24 per cent below the next-best ask. Whether it points to design or is simply the signature of a market from which the bids had gone will depend on the depth of the bids and on the order and execution data. BitMEX’s operator has now opened a second front in London, which makes the question of forum as live as the merits.
On 12 September 2026 the Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC), a joint venture of VanEck and GXD Labs acting as litigation administrator for the Celsius estate, commenced proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York against five BitMEX-related companies, HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services.1, 2, 3, 4 The estate seeks about 6,360 BTC in respect of liquidations on 12 and 13 March 2020. Reports at the time of filing valued that Bitcoin at between $485 million and $495 million.1, 3, 5
On 14 October 2026 HDR Global Trading Limited and other claimants issued a claim in the Commercial Court against Celsius Network Limited and other defendants. The action, HDR Global Trading Limited and others v Celsius Network Limited and others, carries claim number CL-2026-000572 and lists fourteen parties.6 Neither the claim form nor the particulars of claim is yet available, so the relief BitMEX seeks in London is not known.
The disputed Bitcoin
The complaint concerns two liquidations. The estate says that BitMEX liquidated 1,325.84 BTC of Celsius collateral on 12 March 2020 and 5,034.33 BTC belonging to JST, an investment fund whose claims were later assigned to the estate, the following day.1, 5 CoinDesk describes both as positions that profited only if Bitcoin held or rose, while Blockhead reports the estate’s case that each was structured as a delta-neutral hedge.5, 7 The difference is more than descriptive. If the BitMEX positions were one leg of a hedged book, the loss their liquidation caused has to be measured against the whole book rather than the BitMEX leg alone.
The events took place during the first COVID-19 market shock. At around 10:45 UTC on 12 March 2020 Bitcoin fell from $7,200 to $5,678 in about fifteen minutes. BitMEX liquidated $702 million of positions in that window, $698 million of them long.8 At those prices 6,360 BTC was worth between about $36 million and $46 million. A falling market erodes the margin behind a leveraged long. Under BitMEX’s published mechanics, when the Mark Price reaches a position’s liquidation price the liquidation engine takes the position over and seeks to close it. Any profit on the close goes to the insurance fund and any shortfall is drawn from it.9
The estate’s complaint goes to the way BitMEX built and used those powers. It alleges that BitMEX “intentionally designed its platform and liquidation procedures to cause liquidations of collateral”.2, 4, 5 The complaint alleges fraud and market manipulation.1 Its pleaded claims are reported as fraudulent transfer, conversion, breach of contract, breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing and unjust enrichment.4, 10
The machinery of liquidation
The estate attacks three linked parts of the platform. According to the complaint, BitMEX controlled the prices used to trigger liquidations, ran the engine that took over and closed the positions and administered the insurance fund that received proceeds from some liquidated positions.1, 5 Each function has a legitimate risk-management purpose. The difficulty is a structural one. Where a single party writes the rules, sets the reference price and runs the engine, a customer who alleges that the system was turned against it is challenging the exchange’s conduct and its contract at once. The complaint also pleads, on information and belief, that BitMEX had what it calls “God Access” to customers’ account, order-flow and liquidation data in real time, an allegation already made in an earlier claim against the exchange.3
The estate alleges that some liquidation sell orders were placed more than 24 per cent below the next-best ask on the platform and that Bitcoin traded lower on BitMEX than on competing venues as the liquidation cycle intensified. It relies on the platform’s service disruption on 13 March 2020 as evidence that the liquidation engine deepened the sell-off. BitMEX attributed the disruption to two distributed denial-of-service attacks that day, at 02:16 and 12:56 UTC, the first of which slowed the delivery of messages to its trading engine.1, 11
That 24 per cent figure needs care. A marketable liquidation sell order executes against the bids in the book. The reporting does not identify the order types the engine used. The distance between the price at which it was placed and the next-best ask shows how far below the offers it sat, but it says nothing about the prices or volume available on the bid side, which is where the order could actually be filled. Nor is the submitted price necessarily the price achieved. A marketable limit sell order priced below the best bid would execute against bids at or above its limit, as far as the available liquidity permits. What the 24 per cent shows will therefore turn on the depth of the bids in the seconds concerned. The legal question is whether BitMEX complied with its contract and any duties it owed when it operated the liquidation process. None of these allegations has been tested.
Causation and the counterfactual
Causation may prove as important as liability. A customer can show that an exchange acted improperly without showing that the whole trading loss flowed from that misconduct. The court will have to decide what would have happened had BitMEX operated its systems according to its rules, which means asking whether the positions would have survived the fall, whether a later or better-priced close would have preserved some collateral or whether the speed of the move would have exhausted them in any event.
The answer may differ between the Celsius position closed on 12 March and the JST positions closed the next day, on the date of the disruption the estate relies on. Contemporaneous market data, liquidation logs, account balances, margin calculations and the trading rules in force in March 2020 will all be in evidence. Later versions of BitMEX’s terms cannot stand in for the terms that governed these trades.
Bitcoin or its value
The estate seeks return of about 6,360 BTC in kind or its current market value, with statutory and punitive damages, any treble damages available and the profits BitMEX is said to have earned from the liquidations.1, 4 The claim therefore raises the distinction between compensation for a trading loss and recovery of property or its value. A claimant who shows that assets were wrongfully taken or retained may have remedies that differ from damages for breach of contract.
That distinction carries more weight when the asset has multiplied in value. A claim measured at March 2020 prices, somewhere between $36 million and $46 million, is economically a different claim from one that ends in delivery of 6,360 coins worth more than ten times as much in 2026. The form in which a claim is pleaded does not settle the remedy, since the court has first to identify the claimant’s rights, the nature of any wrong and the remedies the applicable law allows. The $495 million figure describes the scale of the claim and says nothing about what a court would award.
Why is BitMEX suing in London?
BitMEX’s operator issued the Commercial Court claim about a month after the US complaint. The sequence points to a connection, though timing alone cannot establish the purpose of the English action. It might concern contractual liability, forum, the construction of the trading terms or some other issue between the parties. Until the claim form can be read, it would be premature to describe the action as an anti-suit application or a claim for negative declaratory relief.
Much will depend on which BitMEX and Celsius entities are parties, which contracts governed the March 2020 trades and how far the relief sought in London overlaps with the claims before the Bankruptcy Court. A governing-law or jurisdiction clause would not, without more, decide the proper forum for every cause of action. Claims in contract, fraud, conversion and restitution can raise different questions of applicable law and jurisdiction. The bankruptcy context adds a further layer without resolving those questions of itself.
The estate’s recovery problem
Celsius entered Chapter 11 in 2022. BRIC is pursuing claims as its litigation administrator to recover value for creditors. For that purpose a finding of liability is only the first step. The defendants are reported to be incorporated in jurisdictions including the Seychelles, Hong Kong and Bermuda.2, 7 Liability has to be established against each of them on a recognised legal basis, because membership of the same corporate group does not make one company answerable for another’s obligations. The identity of the contracting party, the operator of the relevant systems and the entity that held or received the collateral will all bear on that analysis, as will the location of assets and the enforceability of any judgment.
BitMEX announced on 23 July 2026 that its exchange would close on 23 September. The board of HDR Global Trading Limited took the decision “following a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry”. The closure notice stated that “all assets exceed liabilities” by reference to the exchange’s published proof of reserves and liabilities.12 That statement concerns the assets and liabilities shown on BitMEX’s proof-of-reserves page. It does not establish the financial position of HDR Global Trading Limited or any other defendant, nor does it identify which entity holds assets available to meet a judgment. BitMEX has also said that the decision “didn’t come from financial distress, hacks, or immediate regulatory pressure”.13 The estate commenced its claim on 12 September, seven weeks after the announcement and eleven days before the exchange closed.
A second London claim, a different legal theory
BitMEX also faces a High Court claim brought against HDR Global Trading Limited by Lewis Barber, a software engineer from Cheshire. Barber alleges that HDR offered him cryptocurrency derivatives in the UK without the authorisation the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 requires.14, 15 According to particulars of claim reviewed by Decrypt, he entered into around 2,294 trades from five accounts between 2018 and 2022. He challenges the 1,053 trades that lost him money, all of them perpetual swaps. He seeks return of 324.8 BTC or equivalent damages and interest. Decrypt’s report values that Bitcoin at £20.4 million on 1 October.14, 15 He also relies on deceit, negligent misrepresentation and mistake.14
The statutory issues are whether the trades were regulated activities, whether HDR carried them on in the UK, whether it needed authorisation or could rely on an exemption and what remedies follow. Section 26 renders unenforceable against the other party any agreement that a person makes in the course of carrying on a regulated activity in breach of the general prohibition. The other party may then recover any money or other property it paid or transferred under the agreement and compensation for any loss it sustained by parting with it.16 The court may nonetheless, under section 28(3), permit the agreement to be enforced or the money and property paid under it to be retained if it is satisfied that this is just and equitable in the circumstances. In a section 26 case the court must have regard to whether the person carrying on the regulated activity reasonably believed that it was not contravening the general prohibition by making the agreement.17 The FCA issued a warning in March 2020 stating that BitMEX was “not authorised by us and is targeting people in the UK”.14, 18 That warning sets the regulatory context, although it does not by itself show what HDR knew or what it reasonably believed. A BitMEX spokesperson said that “no such claim has been served on HDR Global Trading Limited”, so HDR’s answer to it is not yet known.14
The Barber claim stands apart from Celsius, since it does not depend on proving that the liquidation engine was misused. It attacks the regulatory footing on which the trades were made. A third route is already before the US courts, where a proposed class action brought in July by BKX Services and David Namdar alleges combined losses of 622.66 BTC. BitMEX has called that claim “opportunistic”.1
The question for centralised exchanges
An exchange offering leveraged products may set the reference price, fix margin requirements, operate the liquidation engine and administer the insurance fund. Once a customer alleges that the exchange’s own systems produced an unlawful loss, the contractual rules governing those functions move to the centre of the case.
The estate has to prove actionable wrongdoing, causation and recoverable loss. BitMEX is entitled to contest each element and to rely on its contract and on the market conditions of March 2020. Whether the March 2020 liquidations were the exchange’s rules operating as written or those rules turned against the customer is the merits question for New York. London may first have to answer which court decides it and on what contractual terms.
References
1. Cointelegraph, “Celsius Estate Sues BitMEX Over 6,360 BTC Liquidations”, 17 September 2026. https://cointelegraph.com/news/celsius-estate-bitmex-6360-btc-liquidation-lawsuit
2. CryptoSlate, “Celsius sues BitMEX for $495 million just 11 days before exchange shutdown”, 16 September 2026. https://cryptoslate.com/celsius-sues-bitmex-for-495-million-just-11-days-before-exchange-shutdown/
3. Bitcoin.com News, “’God Access’ Recycled in Another Lawsuit Against BitMEX”, 17 September 2026. https://news.bitcoin.com/exchanges/god-access-recycled-in-another-lawsuit-against-bitmex/
4. Complaint, Celsius Network Limited et al. v HDR Global Trading Limited et al., Adv. Pro. No. 26-01091 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.), filed 12 September 2026. https://cases.stretto.com/public/x191/11749/PLEADINGS/1174909132680000000003.pdf
5. CoinDesk, “Bankrupt Celsius sues BitMEX over Covid crash liquidations, seeking $495M”, 16 September 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/09/16/celsius-sues-bitmex-for-usd495-million-over-2020-crash-liquidations
6. HDR Global Trading Limited and others v Celsius Network Limited and others, claim no. CL-2026-000572, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Commercial Court, issued 14 October 2026. See also Law360, “UK Litigation Roundup: Here’s What You Missed In London”, 16 October 2026. https://www.law360.com/articles/2538848/uk-litigation-roundup-here-s-what-you-missed-in-london
7. Blockhead, “Celsius Estate Sues BitMEX for $495 Million Over 2020 Covid Crash Liquidations”, 17 September 2026. https://www.blockhead.co/2026/09/17/celsius-estate-sues-bitmex-for-495-million-over-2020-covid-crash-liquidations/
8. CoinDesk, “Bitcoin’s Crash Triggers Over $700M in Liquidations on BitMEX”, 12 March 2020. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/03/12/bitcoins-crash-triggers-over-700m-in-liquidations-on-bitmex
9. BitMEX, “BitMEX Insurance Fund: Your Questions Answered”, 2020. https://www.bitmex.com/blog/bitmex-insurance-fund-your-questions-answered
10. crypto.news, “Celsius estate sues BitMEX over $495M in Bitcoin liquidations”, September 2026. https://crypto.news/celsius-estate-sues-bitmex-over-bitcoin-liquidations/
11. BitMEX, “How We Are Responding to the 13 March DDoS Attacks”, March 2020. https://www.bitmex.com/blog/how-we-are-responding-to-last-weeks-ddos-attacks
12. BitMEX, “Important Message from BitMEX”, 23 July 2026. https://www.bitmex.com/blog/bitmex-closure/
13. BitMEX, “BitMEX closure: Important dates and FAQ”. https://support.bitmex.com/hc/en-gb/articles/38519921695645-BitMEX-closure-Important-dates-and-FAQ
14. Bitcoin.com News, “Bitmex Faces $26 Million Claim Over 1,053 Losing Bitcoin Trades”, 14 October 2026. https://news.bitcoin.com/regulation-and-legal/bitmex-faces-26-million-claim-1053-losing-bitcoin-trades/
15. Decrypt, “BitMEX Sued in UK for Return of $27M in Bitcoin Over Unlicensed Derivatives”, 14 October 2026. https://decrypt.co/380904/bitmex-sued-in-uk-for-return-of-27m-in-bitcoin-over-unlicensed-derivatives
16. Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, s 26. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/8/section/26
17. Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, s 28. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/8/section/28
18. Crowdfund Insider, “UK’s FCA Issues Warning Against ‘Unauthorized’ Services Being Offered By BitMEX, a Crypto Derivatives Exchange”, 6 March 2020. https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2020/03/158388-uks-fca-issues-warning-against-unauthorized-services-being-offered-by-bitmex-a-crypto-derivatives-exchange/ See also FCA, “BitMex”, warning list entry, March 2020. https://www.fca.org.uk/news/warnings/bitmex