BitMEX Launched Spot Exchange After Recent $30M Penalty

BitMEX launched spot exchange after the recent $30 million penalties which is a first for the platform despite being founded in 2014 so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news today.

The global crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX is expanding the platform beyond just derivatives and launched a spot crypto trading platform. BitMEX launched spot exchange trading options on May 17 and said the platform is now live, allowing retail and institutional investors to buy and sell cryptos like BTC and ETH. The exchange supports seven pairs of crypto including ETH, BTC, LINK, UNI, MATIC, and AXS< APE all trading against Tether’s USDT.

The launch of the BitMEX Spot exchange came at a time when the company plans to become one of the top ten largest spot exchanges in the world and decided to build its own spot exchange a year ago in response to the increasing trading demand from the current user base, as the CEO Alexander Hopner said:

“Today, BitMEX is one step closer to providing our users with a full crypto ecosystem to buy, sell, and trade their favourite digital assets. We will not rest as we aim to deliver more features, more trading pairs, and more ways for our clients to take part in the crypto revolution.”

Founded in 2014, BitMEX is one of the world’s biggest and oldest trading companies that started providing the services about six years after BTC was launched. Unlike the spot exchanges, BitMEX was focused on derivatives and allowed users to buy and sell contracts like futures, options, and perpetual on a wider range of assets. At the time of writing, BitMEX is one of the top 30 biggest derivatives trading platforms with a daily trading volume of $841 million as per the data from CoinMarketCap. BitMEX was ranked as one of the biggest derivatives platforms by the open interest alongside Binance as of 2020.

BitMEX faced legal issues recently with the founders pleading guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and the court even ordered a total of $30 million civil monetary penalties from the co-founders of BitMEX back in March. The company also laid off about 75 employees or a quarter of the company’s staff after a failed acquisition of the German bank Bankhaus von der Heyd.