Arthur Hayes, founder and former CEO of BitMEX, finally surrendered to U.S. authorities in Hawaii to face charges that the crypto derivatives exchange and its executives violated the Bank Secrecy Act, according to a Bloomberg report.
Hayes has been living in Singapore since January 2020 and was flown to Hawaii to appear before a Honolulu judge. He attended an arraignment hearing before the federal judge and was subsequently released on a $10 million bond as part of prior negotiations with the U.S. government made by Hayes’ lawyers. The ex-CEO will stand trial in New York alongside co-owner Benjamin Delo and former CTO Samuel Reed.
As ZyCrypto previously reported, the case against Hayes and his colleagues started last October when the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) lodged a lawsuit against them for operating an unregulated exchange. The FBI simultaneously charged the trio with failing to implement anti-money laundering regulations.
Following these criminal and civil charges, the executives stepped down from their roles at the exchange. Although Hayes no longer works at BitMEX, he has continued to contribute to the exchange’s official blog in recent weeks.
The other defendant named in the case, Grey Dwyer, is reportedly still in Bermuda and has refused to negotiate with authorities thus forcing the U.S. to demand his extradition from the Caribbean nation.
In light of the BitMEX legal case, customers made withdrawals from the exchange to the tune of 40,000 BTC. Moreover, BitMEX’s open interest and trade volume has decreased massively over the last months. At the time of publication, BitMEX is the eighth-largest derivatives trading platform with a $4.2 billion trading volume on an adjusted 24-hour period.
Earlier this year, BitMEX announced that it had successfully completed its “User Verification Programme”, meaning it now has fully verified customers. The announcement read in part:
“We’re pleased to confirm that our User Verification Programme has been successfully implemented, making BitMEX one of the largest crypto derivatives exchanges in the world with a fully verified active user base.”
While we are yet to see how this battle between BitMEX, its co-founders, and the United States authorities will play out, it seems that the exchange has turned over a new leaf.
