The bankrupt Celsius network has filed a lawsuit against five companies associated with BitMEX, seeking compensation for 6,360.16 BTC, valued at approximately $486 million at the time of writing.
The defendants named in the lawsuit include HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings, and HDR Global Services.
Celsius claims that BitMEX unlawfully liquidated their positions during the market crash in March 2020.
According to court documents, on March 12, 2020, the exchange forcibly closed a Celsius order collateralized by 1,325.84 BTC, and on March 13, it liquidated the JST fund's position of 5,034.33 BTC. The latter amount was added to the bankruptcy estate of the failed company.
The plaintiffs allege that BitMEX controlled the prices at which liquidations occurred, the execution mechanism of these liquidations, and the insurance fund that received part of the funds. The documents claim that some liquidation orders were placed more than 24% below the nearest best offer price on the platform.
Celsius's entities also reference a BitMEX outage on March 13, after which liquidations reportedly stopped, and the price of Bitcoin recovered. Additionally, the exchange reported experiencing two DDoS attacks.
In addition to the principal amount for the liquidations, Celsius representatives are demanding punitive damages and the recovery of legal costs from the defendants.
This lawsuit was filed just 11 days before BitMEX announced a halt to its services. In the summer of 2026, the platform declared it would stop accepting new users and winding down operations.
It's worth noting that in July, BKX Services and David Namdar accused the cryptocurrency exchange of manipulation and misappropriation of 622.66 BTC.