Potential acquirers, including Exodus, passed on the exchange amid concerns over founder control, fading growth, and reputational baggage.

Before the once-popular crypto exchange BitMEX announced plans to wind down operations, it spent two years exploring a sale with multiple prospective buyers — including competitor exchanges and the self-custody crypto wallet and payments platform Exodus — but failed to reach a deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Reputational baggage, fading growth, and founder control combined to drive potential acquirers away, the source said. BitMEX's declining business made it difficult to justify a growth valuation, the person added.

CoinDesk reported in early 2025 that investment bank Broadhaven was advising the Seychelles-based company on a sale process.

Although co-founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Samuel Reed had long since stepped away from the business after U.S. criminal charges were brought against them in 2020 — for allegedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act and failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls — one prospective buyer was uncomfortable that they still controlled a large majority of the company, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is private.

That made negotiations harder because buyers typically want part of the acquisition payout earmarked to encourage executives to remain with the company after a deal closes.

The company's deteriorating financial performance compounded these concerns. BitMEX continued to lose market share throughout the sale process as trading activity migrated to larger centralized exchanges and decentralized perpetual futures platforms. This reluctance to pay the revenue multiple typically reserved for growing businesses reflected those headwinds, the person said.

Both BitMEX and Exodus did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

The exchange was reportedly seeking a valuation of around $1 billion during the process, although it remains unclear whether formal bids were ever submitted.

BitMEX was one of crypto's most influential exchanges, pioneering the perpetual futures contract in 2016 with the launch of its XBTUSD perpetual swap. Unlike traditional futures, perpetuals have no expiry date and instead use a funding-rate mechanism to keep prices aligned with the underlying asset, allowing traders to maintain leveraged long or short positions indefinitely. The product revolutionized crypto derivatives trading, was rapidly adopted across the industry, and today accounts for the vast majority of crypto derivatives volume on exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, and Hyperliquid.

The company announced on July 24 that it would wind down operations following a strategic review by its parent, HDR Global Trading, immediately halting new account registrations ahead of its planned September 23 closure.

The failed sale stands in contrast to a broader rebound in crypto dealmaking. As institutional interest has returned and regulatory uncertainty has eased, buyers have pursued acquisitions to expand trading, custody, and infrastructure businesses. But unlike many recent targets, BitMEX entered the market with declining market share, lingering legal baggage stemming from the criminal case and related civil settlements with the CFTC and FinCEN, and an ownership structure that complicated a deal.

Dealmaking has remained active across the digital asset industry in recent months. SBI Holdings agreed to acquire Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank for $289 million, Keyrock bought BlockFills' institutional trading business, and Bullish (BLSH) — CoinDesk's owner — agreed to acquire transfer agent Equiniti for $4.2 billion.

There have been 144 announced mergers and acquisitions worth $11.8 billion so far in 2026, up 3.5% from the same period last year, according to advisory firm Architect Partners.

The exchange is now facing a lawsuit alleging it withheld traders' collateral and engaged in insider trading. The complaint claims that the co-founders designed the platform to retain customer collateral while transferring excess bitcoin into BitMEX's insurance fund.

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