BitMEX is facing a new lawsuit seeking to recover 6,360 BTC ($485m) for former Celsius customers, days before the cryptocurrency exchange is due to close permanently.
The case, filed on 12 September by Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC) in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, names five BitMEX entities as defendants. BRIC is a joint venture between Vaneck and GXD Labs.
The claim centres on two BitMEX trading accounts that were closed during the cryptocurrency market crash on 12-13 March 2020, when bitcoin fell by 50% to below $4,000.
BRIC alleges that BitMEX’s own trading activity intensified the collapse. It also claims that one position holding bitcoin belonging to Celsius was liquidated at a price that was available only on BitMEX.
“Instead of maintaining an orderly market, BitMEX intentionally designed its platform and liquidation procedures to cause liquidations of collateral and defraud its own customers,” the lawsuit alleges. It adds that the exchange “turned market crises into a profit centre”.
BitMEX was offline for about 25 minutes on 13 March 2020, citing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against its systems. During the outage, the price of BTC rose from about $3,900 to $5,300.
According to BRIC, when trading resumed and liquidations were carried out against the stale order book, forced sale orders moved through “a thin set of stale bids” and were executed at a price which “existed nowhere but on BitMEX’s own broken book”.
The lawsuit further alleges that an internal BitMEX trading team was able to identify the levels at which customers would be liquidated and trade against them.
“On information and belief, the Insider Trading Desk had access and capabilities unavailable to ordinary customers; what others have referred to as ‘God Access’real-time access to customer account, order-flow, execution, open-position, and liquidation information,” BRIC said.
The consortium also alleges, on information and belief, that people linked to the desk used anonymised “burner” email accounts and traded on several cryptocurrency exchanges.
Similar allegations involving “God Access” and an insider trading desk were made in another lawsuit brought by BKX Services, a Nevada corporation operating from New York, and David Namdar. That action was filed on 23 July, the day BitMEX announced its closure, and seeks class-action status and the recovery of 623 BTC allegedly lost through forced liquidations.
BRIC’s Celsius-related claim says collateral from liquidated positions was transferred to BitMEX’s Insurance Fund, creating an incentive to liquidate customers. It alleges the fund increased by 4,457 BTC during 12-13 March 2020 and reached 37,836 BTC.
BitMEX previously said the fund lost 2,606 BTC on 13 March, adding that it did not pay the exchange’s operating costs or contribute to its profits.
The case also highlights Celsius’ own conduct. Court-appointed examiner Shoba Pillay concluded in January 2023 that “the business model Celsius advertised and sold to its customers was not the business that Celsius actually operated”, saying the company “abandoned its promise of transparency from its start”.
Traders have unsuccessfully sued BitMEX over liquidations in the past. In October 2025, BRIC said Tether paid almost $300m to settle a Celsius lawsuit.
BitMEX has not responded to the latest claim. Its operator, HDR Global Trading Limited, has announced that the exchange will permanently close on 23 September 2026.
