BitMEX Investigation by the CFTC Seems to Spawn from Wide Differences of Outflows and Inflows

After Bloomberg recently announced that BitMEX’s exchange is under investigation with the CFTC, the cryptocurrency community started scrambling. The website posted an anonymous source, who stated that the investigation was due to accusations over offering Bitcoin derivatives and future products. While these offers would not ordinarily warrant in the investigation, BitMEX did so without permission and made it possible for US-based consumers to participate.

In the recent report, the allegations stated that BitMEX was leveraging 100x for Bitcoin trading, which put traders at substantial risk and potentially broke several regulations regarding money laundering. The news quickly spread, and many traders on the platform appeared to get worried. Based on the inflow and outflow of capital, it is abundantly clear that this fear is causing them to move their funds.

The below chart shows the inflow and outflow of BitMEX, according to TokenAnalyst. The full data can be viewed at token analyst.

This outflow was also brought to the attention of the cryptocurrency community in a tweet from TokenAnalyst this morning.

🚨 24H BTC exchange on-chain flows:#binance: $58M in | $54M out#bitstamp: $52M in | $50M out#bittrex: $4M in | $5M out#poloniex: $6M in | $4M out#bitmex: $12M in | $85M out

See more at https://t.co/6AFFM1D63p

— TokenAnalyst (@thetokenanalyst) July 20, 2019

Experts say that the sudden spike is directly correlated to the report from Bloomberg, though it is important to understand that BitMEX isn’t registered with the CFTC at all. The headquarters can be found in the Republic of Seychelles.

Formerly, CFTC had already asked that BitMEX stop their services for traders in the United States, but the report stated suspicion that the services were not pulled. In fact, it even alleged that the trading services were still available, even after being asked to block off these traders. The report didn’t seem to have an impact on the market, but it made the public see BitMEX in a different light, and the fear amongst traders spread.

Without any clarity on the current state of the CFTC investigation, the outflow of funds could potentially continue and increase. At the time of writing, the outflow appeared to reach $28.99 million in outflow and only $8.05 million in inflow in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s price is presently at $10,940.59, growing by 4.92% in the last 24 hours. While it is clear that Bitcoin is still making progress, BitMEX’s ultimate fate is still up in the air.