After years of playing hide and seek with the authorities, cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX founders pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws. During a hearing in federal court in New York, Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo admitted that they failed to establish an anti-money laundering program at the cryptocurrency exchange. Both were found guilty of violating the anti-money laundering provision of the Bank Secrecy Act. The two agreed to each pay a $10 million fine.
“Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo built a company designed to flout those obligations,” said the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Damian Williams.
“They willfully failed to implement and maintain even basic anti-money laundering policies. They allowed BitMEX to operate as a platform in the shadows of the financial markets.”
Hayes and Delo founded BitMEX in 2014 with the help of Samuel Reed, a programmer specializing in web applications. In October 2020, they were charged with failing to implement programs that prevented money laundering or verified the identities of their customers. Prosecutors claimed BitMEX was set up in Seychelles to escape regulatory scrutiny. Later in the year, the crypto exchange and its three founders were sued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for operating an unregistered trading platform and violating multiple CFTC regulations.
Two years later, the founders have acknowledged their mistakes and are willing to accept responsibility for their actions. Hayes’s spokesperson mentioned in the statement that he [Hayes] “looks forward to the time when he can put this matter behind him.”
It’s noteworthy that despite the crisis at BitMEX, the crypto exchange was able to launch new products without many hurdles. For instance, one of the oldest crypto derivatives exchanges is now promoting its own crypto token while keeping a close eye on other crypto products. In an attempt to bridge the financial and crypto sectors, the exchange announced earlier this year that it would purchase Bankhaus von der Heydt, a 268-year-old German bank.
Currently, the exchange’s trading 24-hour trading volume stands at $1.48 billion. Even though Coinbase’s volume is much higher at $3.77 billion, this is still a massive figure nonetheless.