A Letter to You All

We’ve Seen a Marked Increase in the Number of Both New and Returning Users Trading on BitMEX

Today, we’re writing to all new users – as well as those who’ve been with and trusted us for longer – to reaffirm the foundations of our operations.

It would be remiss not to say the past days have been big. Big for our industry, big for our exchange. As we said at the time, our deepest sympathies go out to all affected by the FTX fall out.

With increased attention on our industry globally, there is no more relevant time for us to clearly break down our operations, and reaffirm any queries you might have.

We’re one of the first. We date back to 2014.

In this industry, that makes us veterans. We’ve weathered a few storms and come out the other side. We know what to do, and what not to.

We exist to provide institutional and professional traders a platform that delivers and lets them succeed. Safe in the knowledge their funds are secure.

Our organisation is built upon, and managed by engineers, traders, specialists and talent primarily from the technology and finance sectors. All are crypto native. All know how important the stakes are for our customers. None take shortcuts. We bring from our past roles, the rigour required to operate an exchange.

We were one of the first to provide proof of reserves

Moving forward, you’ll find our data files shared publicly every Tuesday and Thursday. To date, this transparency has only been matched by a few.

You deploy your funds, not us

No lending, staking, trading… nothing. Your funds remain in our wallets. We don’t lend them out. We’re not a trading house, we’re an exchange.

We have no exposure to VC money or any other liabilities. BitMEX is funded through our operating profits.

We don’t compromise security for convenience

Since 2014, we’ve lost zero cryptocurrency through intrusion or hacking. We were conceived out of the ashes of Mt Gox – the protection of client assets has been central to everything we do.

For signing XBT withdrawal transactions, we use a split key approach. The individual split keys are encrypted under Paillier encryption, with a portion of each encrypted key stored in a hardware security module (HSM).

We place a tremendous amount of  focus on the segregation of duties.  No one actor in the system can successfully sign a withdrawal from the system. Every transaction requires multiple signatures and interaction with an untampered HSM to be valid.

Our positions and margins are checked multiple times a minute. With balances cross-checked against on-chain records, every 10. Bugs, flaws or intrusions, causing positions not to match, will immediately halt our exchange. We keep 100% of our users’ funds – and our insurance fund – in wallets that we control at all times.

There’s more we’re doing – and have done for some time now too – but for now, the above seemed most pertinent to you all. We look forward to continuously providing you the updates you seek and deserve as our users.

Best,

BitMEX.