July 23 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX said on Thursday that it will shut down its operations, effective September 23, and said that users' assets remained safe and under their control.
The owner and operator of BitMEX, HDR Global Trading, made the decision as part of a strategic review of the business, the exchange said in a post on X.
BitMEX also urged users to close their open positions and withdraw their funds before the closure.
The co-founders of BitMEX, Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed, had pleaded guilty in 2022 for failing to implement a Bank Secrecy Act-compliant anti-money laundering program.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned them last year as part of his administration's policy of looser regulation on crypto.
Prosecutors had accused BitMEX and the founders of willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act between 2015 and 2020 by failing to adopt anti-money-laundering and 'know your customer' programs.
Founded in 2014, BitMEX provides institutional and professional derivative traders with an exchange platform. It has more the 2 million traders on its platform, according to its website.
The closure comes amid struggling crypto prices. Bitcoin has surrendered most of its gains from last year after Trump was elected as U.S. president for his second term.
It was last trading at $65,676, down almost 50% from an all-time high of $126,223.18 in October last year.
Crypto markets have struggled this year amid heightened market volatility and persistent ETF outflows that track the assets.
Trump, who courted crypto donors during his campaign had promised support to cryptofirms during his second term.
However, slow progress on U.S. crypto legislation and concerns over potential bitcoin selling by digital asset treasury companies have hit investor sentiment.
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Sonia Cheema)
