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BitMEX's $50 monthly minimum costs a $6,000 leftover balance 10% a year
BitMEX is charging verified users $50 a month, or 1% a year if greater, on balances left after it closed its exchange on September 23. Below $60,000 the flat charge sets the rate, so a $1,000 balance loses 60% a year.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- BitMEX stopped trading, new positions and deposits at 04:00 UTC on September 23, ending 11 years of exchange operations.
- Verified users who leave a balance now owe $50 a month or 1% a year billed monthly, whichever is greater, BitMEX said in a post on X.
- A July notice from BitMEX said the fee would rise over time for balances never withdrawn, with any increase announced in advance.
- Withdrawals remain open through the website, but BitMEX warned that reviews, heavy demand and blockchain confirmation times could slow them.
- HDR Global Trading, the Seychelles company that owns BitMEX, put the business up for sale in early 2025 and found no buyer.
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Why it matters
- cost Small accounts pay the steepest rates, because the $50 floor takes a larger share the less money is left and each charge raises the share the next one takes.
- decision BitMEX's promised increase means the cost of leaving money in place can only hold or rise, so a holder who waits gets today's rate at best.
- exposure Holders of coins that fall against the dollar lose more coins each month, because the charge is fixed in dollar terms.
The flat charge and the percentage are equal at $60,000. Twelve months at $50 is $600, and 1% of $60,000 is also $600 [1], so any balance below that line pays the flat charge and any balance above it pays the percentage. On $6,000 the floor works out to 10% a year. On $1,000 it is 60% [2]. Left alone, a $1,000 account would be gone in 20 months, before any price move and before any increase [3].
The exit is open, and slower than it was. BitMEX said it is phasing in identity verification updates, cooldown periods and a simplified website [15]. It also said there is no priority or expedited withdrawal service, a warning issued alongside alerts about phishing messages that promised faster payouts [7]. Coins sent to old deposit addresses are not credited [8]. "Your funds remain completely safe," the company wrote [9]. The monthly charge comes out of those funds [2].
Above $60,000 the charge is 1% a year, about 0.08% a month [5], and a holder there has less reason to hurry. Below that line, I think the fee settles the question: each month the money stays costs $50 [2], against a single transfer out. Whether the queue itself costs anything depends on a detail BitMEX has not published. If it stops billing accounts whose withdrawals are marked Processing, a status it says means the request is waiting for the blockchain [6], the loss ends when a request is filed. If billing continues through the queue, each month a request sits there costs another $50 [2].
With no buyer for the business [12], HDR Global is neither running an exchange nor selling one [1]. What it still holds is customers' leftover money. A $50 floor with a promised increase [3] makes small balances expensive to leave there. The contract BitMEX introduced has outlived the exchange [1][10]. BitMEX brought out the perpetual swap, a futures contract with no expiry date, in 2016, and the perpetual is now the predominant product in crypto derivatives [10]. Centralized exchanges traded $3.4 trillion of derivatives in August alone [11]. After U.S. authorities charged BitMEX in October 2020 over anti-money-laundering failures, Binance, Bybit and OKX took the lead it had held [13].
What to watch
- A BitMEX notice giving the size and start date of the fee increase it flagged in July.
- How BitMEX treats balances of users who never cleared identity checks, since the reported fee applies to verified users.
- What happens to an account once the monthly charge has used up its balance.