Exchanges

Bitmex Bans Its Own Country

from Trust Nodes 4 years ago 0 0 735

Bitmex is banning residents of countries in which the company is itself incorporated or based.

“We have decided to restrict access to BitMEX for users in the jurisdictions in which HDR-affiliated employees and offices are located. Seychelles, Hong Kong and Bermuda will be added to the list of jurisdictions already restricted from access to BitMEX.”

So the exchange said with HDR Global Trading Limited (HDR) being their parent company.

They do not clarify why they’ve taken this step except to say “it is the mission of good regulators to ensure that honest citizens are not being cheated… through this process, we will see a new era of legitimacy for cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Bitmex is based in Seychelles with offices in Hong Kong and Bermuda with the exchange so banning its own jurisdiction.

They also ban American residents and citizens, in addition to Québec in Canada, Cuba, Crimea and Sevastopol, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan.

The exchange offers 100x margins for bitcoin and 50x margins for eth with deposits and withdrawals limited to only bitcoin.

They are not regulated by any entity as far as we are aware, with the exchange frequently overloaded and generally sees significant spreads.

They report daily volumes in the billions, with perpetual futures being one innovation that has come from the exchange.

They’re one of the oldest bitcoin derivatives exchange, rising to prominence in part due to its referral program and because it was the only exchange with significant margins following the closure of Chinese crypto exchanges in 2017.

They remain one of the few places where identification is not requires as far as we are aware, so how they’ll enforce this ban is not clear.

America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is apparently looking at the exchange to see if there has been any misconduct by allowing US traders to use the platform.

CFTC has jurisdiction in US over products like bitcoin futures and margins with registration required if they are to be provided.

Bitmex does not have oversight from any financial regulator as far as we are aware, with this latest announcement seemingly suggesting they’d rather ban jurisdictions instead of going through the process.