Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network's estate has filed a lawsuit against BitMEX seeking the return of 6,360.17 BTC worth approximately $495 million. According to reports from CoinDesk, the complaint was filed on September 12 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York by Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium, the litigation administrator appointed in the Celsius bankruptcy. The defendants include HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services — entities spanning multiple jurisdictions including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, England, Hong Kong, the Seychelles and the U.S. The lawsuit comes just 11 days before BitMEX stops trading for good on September 23, giving the estate a critical window to act against the defendant that is winding down operations. The case represents a potentially significant new recovery channel for Celsius creditors, with the estate having previously generated $299.5 million from a settlement with Tether in October 2025.
Celsius alleges it lost 1,325.84 BTC in a single liquidation on March 12, 2020, while investment fund JST lost 5,034.33 BTC the following day. As reported by CoinDesk, both positions held leveraged longs that profited only if bitcoin held or rose. The complaint alleges that BitMEX controlled both the system deciding when customers were liquidated and the insurance fund that grew from those liquidations. The estate is pursuing claims assigned to it by JST, whose losses were transferred to the Celsius bankruptcy estate. The lawsuit details how Celsius sent 350 BTC of extra margin at 23:47 UTC on March 12, but BitMEX emailed five minutes later to say it had seen the transfer but not yet confirmed it. The position was gone before that confirmation arrived. The second liquidation hit JST Alpha 1 at 02:50 UTC on March 13, with the best offer price on the contract falling from $4,502 to $3,422 in that same minute, which Celsius argues cannot be rationally explained by trading. The complaint describes how BitMEX made multiple representations that it would maintain an orderly market for derivatives contracts, but alleges these were false and that the exchange intentionally designed its platform to cause liquidations of collateral and defraud customers.
The lawsuit presents an awkward contradiction to Celsius's marketing strategy. According to CoinDesk, the lender marketed low-risk, delta-neutral strategies including arbitrage, funding-rate harvesting, and carry trades while paying yield on user deposits. However, a July 2022 bankruptcy filing revealed that behind these claims, the firm ran "several highly speculative derivative and asset deployment mechanisms." The allegations describe a leveraged long position into the Covid crash, funded from a pooled customer book, which aligns with the court-appointed examiner's findings about the firm's actual risk exposure. The lawsuit names HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services, with nine counts covering fraud, price manipulation and replevin. The case turns on whether Celsius can prove its losses flowed from actionable misconduct by BitMEX rather than from the extreme volatility and contract mechanics that traders accepted when opening leveraged positions.
The lawsuit comes as BitMEX announced in July that it would wind down operations, with the exchange stopping trading September 23 at 04:00 UTC. As reported by CoinDesk, BitMEX has tied the reasons behind its shutdown to a strategic review rather than insolvency, a hack or regulator action. The allegations represent the second suit filed against BitMEX since it announced its wind-down plans. The coins are worth roughly $481 million at Wednesday's Bitcoin price of $75,702, with the same recovery team having previously pulled a $299.5 million settlement out of Tether last October. The estate is pursuing the property itself through replevin claims, with none of the allegations having been tested and BitMEX not yet answering them. BitMEX stopped accepting new accounts after announcing its closure and began limiting customers' ability to increase positions in late August, settling and delisting contracts ahead of the September 23 shutdown. The exchange has said the closure was not prompted by financial distress, a hack or immediate regulatory pressure, and that customer assets exceed liabilities.
The Celsius case adds to mounting legal pressure on BitMEX as it prepares for closure. As reported by CoinDesk, similar claims appeared in a proposed class action filed in July by BKX Services and trader David Namdar, who alleged that BitMEX engineered forced liquidations and retained 622.66 BTC that should have gone back to customers. BKX lost at least 305.81 BTC, while Namdar claimed losses of more than 316.85 BTC. Their case also alleged that BitMEX's internal trading operation had access to private customer information and could continue operating during server outages that stopped users from managing their positions. The proposed class action seeks to represent eligible U.S. traders who used BitMEX's Bitcoin perpetual swap products in transactions dating back to July 23, 2018. BitMEX has also faced prior action from U.S. authorities, including a $100 million criminal fine in January 2025 after admitting Bank Secrecy Act violations. Founded in 2014, the exchange became known for offering highly leveraged cryptocurrency derivatives, but its influence declined as competition increased and regulated futures platforms gained more institutional business.
