Celsius Network’s bankruptcy estate is trying to claw back 6, 360.17 Bitcoin from BitMEX-linked entities, saying the exchange kept excess value from March 2020 forced liquidations instead of returning it to customers.
- Claim: 6, 360.17 BTC, valued at about $495 million
- Filing date: Sep. 12 in the Southern District of New York
- Alleged event: March 2020 liquidation losses during the COVID market crash
- Status: Complaint stage only, not proven
The complaint, filed by Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium as litigation administrator under Celsius’s bankruptcy plan, names HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings, and HDR Global Services. The estate says BitMEX’s liquidation system was built to profit from customer collateral and that the exchange kept surplus Bitcoin instead of handing it back.
That is the heart of the fight: after a forced liquidation, how much collateral did BitMEX say it needed, and how much did it allegedly keep beyond that? The estate is not just arguing about market losses. It says BitMEX’s setup may have turned customer pain into exchange gain.
The lawsuit says Celsius lost 1, 325.84 BTC when BitMEX liquidated its position on March 12, 2020, and that JST lost 5, 034.33 BTC in a liquidation on March 13, 2020. JST later assigned its claims to the Celsius estate, bringing the total demand to 6, 360.17 BTC.
The filing values that at roughly $77, 800 per Bitcoin, which is how it gets to about $495 million. That is the claimed value of the coins at that valuation, not a guaranteed recovery for creditors. In bankruptcy, the number in the complaint and the money that actually comes back are often two very different things.
According to the complaint, BitMEX “intentionally designed its platform and liquidation procedures to cause liquidations of collateral and defraud its own customers.” That is a serious allegation, but it is still just that. BitMEX has not been found liable in this case.
March 2020 was one of the ugliest stress tests crypto markets have ever seen. COVID panic slammed global markets, leverage got wiped out, and exchanges had to close positions fast. A forced liquidation happens when a trader’s collateral falls below the required maintenance level and the exchange automatically shuts the position to stop losses from snowballing.
BitMEX has long been one of the best-known names in crypto derivatives, especially for perpetual futures. A perpetual swap is a leveraged derivative with no expiration date, widely used by traders who want to bet on bitcoin’s price without holding spot BTC. It is a powerful instrument. It is also the sort of product that can go from clever to brutal in a heartbeat when volatility loses its mind.
The timing adds another layer of tension. BitMEX announced in July that it would close and told customers to withdraw funds before trading ends on Sep. 23. The Celsius complaint came later, on Sep. 12. So yes, the exchange was already heading for the exit when the estate filed suit, a detail that may matter more for optics and operations than for the legal claims themselves.
BitMEX’s legal baggage is hard to ignore, even if it does not prove anything about this specific dispute. In January 2025, a federal judge ordered HDR Global Trading to pay a $100 million criminal fine over Bank Secrecy Act violations tied to compliance failures between 2015 and 2020. Earlier civil proceedings involving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and FinCEN also produced major settlements. In 2022, co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed pleaded guilty, and President Donald Trump pardoned them in 2025 along with former executive Gregory Dwyer and related corporate entities.
That history matters because credibility matters. A company does not have to be guilty of every new accusation for its past to shape how the market, creditors, and courts see it. BitMEX’s record is not exactly the clean white shirt of finance.
Celsius, though, is hardly filing from a moral pedestal.
The lender froze withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy the following month after its own collapse exposed risky and opaque behavior. A July 2022 filing described Celsius as using “several highly speculative derivative and asset deployment mechanisms.” Former court findings and examiner reporting also documented failures in risk controls, trading discipline, and recordkeeping.
That is the uncomfortable reality here: Celsius may well have a legitimate claim against BitMEX, and Celsius itself still ran a business that took customer assets and chased yield with far too much confidence. Two compromised players can still end up in a real dispute. Crypto finance, as ever, has a gift for turning hubris into litigation.
The Celsius bankruptcy estate has already been working through a broader recovery process. In January 2024, it began distributing assets under its restructuring plan, which has provided more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency and other property to creditors. Former creditors also received about 37 million Class A shares in Ionic Digital, the mining company created through the restructuring. Ionic Digital secured SEC approval for its planned Nasdaq listing in July.
A third Celsius payout round began in August 2025, with approximately $220.6 million allocated to eligible creditors. That makes this BitMEX case part of a larger effort to squeeze out every recoverable asset or claim, because that is what bankruptcy estates are supposed to do: collect, fight, and redistribute what they can.
Celsius is also not the only group making this kind of accusation against BitMEX. In July, BKX Services and David Namdar filed a separate proposed class action claiming BitMEX retained 622.66 BTC that should have gone back to customers. BKX said it lost at least 305.81 BTC, while Namdar claimed losses of more than 316.85 BTC. That suit seeks to represent eligible U.S. traders using BitMEX’s Bitcoin perpetual swap products in transactions dating back to July 23, 2018.
Separate lawsuits do not equal proof, but they do suggest a pattern worth watching. When more than one plaintiff says the liquidation machinery may have favored the venue over the trader, the issue stops looking like a one-off complaint and starts looking like a structural problem.
What this case is really about
At the center of this dispute is a simple but nasty question: when a leveraged position gets liquidated, who controls the leftovers?
If an exchange’s system takes more collateral than needed to cover losses, or routes excess value in a way the customer never agreed to, that is not a small accounting disagreement. That is the whole fight. Celsius’s estate says BitMEX had no right to keep the extra Bitcoin. BitMEX will likely argue it followed its rules and that the market losses belonged to the trader, not the exchange.
The court will have to decide whether the liquidation process was just harsh market plumbing or something more abusive. And because this is crypto, where “risk management” is often just leverage wearing sunglasses, the answer could matter far beyond these two companies.
Key questions and takeaways
-
What is Celsius asking for?
The estate wants 6, 360.17 BTC returned from BitMEX-linked entities. The filing values that at about $495 million. -
Why does March 2020 matter?
That was the COVID crash period, when leveraged crypto positions were getting wiped out across exchanges and forced liquidations were everywhere. -
Has BitMEX been found liable?
No. The case is only at the complaint stage, so the allegations have not been proven in court. -
Why does BitMEX’s history matter?
Because its prior compliance failures and criminal fine shape how seriously new claims are likely to be viewed, even if they do not prove the liquidation allegations themselves. -
Does Celsius have clean hands?
No. Celsius also collapsed after using risky, speculative strategies with customer assets, so this is not a saint-versus-sinner story. -
Could creditors get all of the Bitcoin back?
They could recover some value, but there is no guarantee they get the full amount. Legal costs, defenses, settlements, and collection risk can all reduce any payout. -
Why does this matter beyond one dispute?
Because exchange liquidation design can become a legal battleground when leverage blows up. If the rules let a venue keep more than it should, customers will eventually notice, and lawyers usually show up soon after.
Further reading
For the legal and technical sides of this mess, these background reads add useful context.
- Celsius estate sues BitMEX over $495M in Bitcoin
- Celsius Estate Sues BitMEX for $495M in Bitcoin Liquidations
- BitMEX Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Alleged Fraud and
- BitMEX’s Canary Fund: A Bold Defense Against Bitcoin’s Quantum Threat
- BitMEX Thwarts Lazarus Group Hack, Exposes North Korean Cybercrime Blunders
- Alex Mashinsky Sentenced to 12 Years for Celsius Network Crypto Fraud
