BitMEX has announced it will shut down on September 23, following “a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry.”

The Arthur Hayes-founded exchange revealed earlier today that it was closing down, but didn’t expand on what exactly caused the closure. Users were encouraged to withdraw their funds and close any positions they may hold.

BitMEX stressed that assets are safe and remain in users’ control, and explained that it’s simply giving a timely warning to “ensure a smooth withdrawal process for everyone.”

At time of writing, the exchange holds over $739 million worth of customer assets, along with an insurance fund with $239 million worth of BTC and $31 million worth of USDT.

The exchange is the 35th most active crypto derivatives exchange and 65th largest crypto exchange overall.

The exchange’s BMEX token was also unstaked for every user, and has collapsed 97% across the last four hours. BMEX was already down 99.87% from its 2022 all-time high. 

BitMEX’s shuttering coincides with a crypto bear market that’s seen multiple crypto firms lay off staff. Since January 2026, the company’s trading volume has only crossed $1 million 14 times. 

Read more: Crypto firms cut jobs as bear market and AI shift bite

Going forward, no new BitMEX accounts can be created, with all services due to be closed in September (except withdrawals). Accounts with funds remaining will be charged monthly at “USD50 equivalent or 1% per annum (whichever is greater).”

BitMEX hasn’t commented on plans for its $270 million insurance fund after September 23. Protos reached out to BitMEX regarding its plans for its insurance fund but did not receive a response prior to publication time.

The insurance fund has grown over time, mostly due to BitMEX profits from trading fees and liquidations. Although some people have called it ‘one of the best performing funds of all time,’ its outperformance partially came at the expense of exchange-affiliated marketmakers trading against BitMEX customers.

BitMEX warned that winding down a company can allow criminals to take advantage of uncertainty. “Be vigilant for phishing attempts using this news, or promising priority or accelerated withdrawals – no such expedited service is available,” it told users.

It added, “While this news is difficult to share, we are proud of everything that has been built at the company since its launch as a pioneer of crypto derivatives.”

BitMEX was bad at stopping money laundering

BitMEX was founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Samuel Reed. Together they created the 100x leverage perpetual swap, which BitMEX claimed at one point to have been “the most traded product in the crypto industry.” The holding company of BitMEX has been 100x Group, named after that product.

In February 2022, Hayes and Delo pled guilty to breaking the Bank Secrecy Act and violating anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Reed pled guilty one month later to similar charges.

For a time under their stewardship, the exchange had limited KYC or AML checks. This resulted in a Department of Justice enforcement action for compliance failures.  

Q. Not all tokenized equity products are the same. What is the most important distinction to understand?

The central question is what the token actually represents. In the strongest model, the token is the share itself, meaning ownership, voting rights and dividends travel with it. In a synthetic wrapper, the investor owns a contractual claim against another entity, not the underlying share, introducing counterparty risk, tracking risk and the possibility that corporate actions do not pass through correctly.

Two tokens with the same ticker can represent very different instruments. The SEC’s January 2026 staff statement drew this distinction explicitly. For advisors evaluating these products, the structure is not a technical detail. It determines what rights the holder actually has.

Q. How developed is the regulatory framework at this point?

More developed than most people realize, but with gaps remaining. In the past eight months, the SEC issued a no-action letter for DTC tokenization services, published a staff statement establishing ownership taxonomy and approved Nasdaq’s proposal to trade tokenized securities alongside conventional shares. DTCC completed its first live production transactions this month.

Despite the progress, uncertainty still exists. Tokenized equities remain largely restricted to non-U.S. or accredited investors, the CLARITY Act has not been enacted, and third-party synthetic models carry more legal uncertainty than issuer-sponsored structures. The framework is building in a clear direction, but there is still much to accomplish to drive confidence and adoption.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy has joined eight financial firms in pledging $15 million over three years to protect Bitcoin, starting with preparations for potential quantum-computing threats.

Strategy announced the Bitcoin Security Consortium in a press release, naming Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Galaxy Digital as its other founding members.

Drawn from several parts of the institutional Bitcoin market, the coalition includes exchange-traded fund issuers, custodians and infrastructure companies. BlackRock, Fidelity and ARK Invest issue spot Bitcoin ETFs, while Anchorage Digital and Coinbase provide custody services. Block, Blockstream and Galaxy Digital operate businesses tied to Bitcoin infrastructure and financial products.

Rather than combining the $15 million under a central fund, each founding member will choose which developers, researchers and organizations receive its share, according to Strategy. The model allows the companies to finance different projects while coordinating their security work through the consortium.

Brink Executive Director Mike Schmidt will coordinate the consortium’s daily operations in a volunteer capacity, Strategy stated. Addressing concerns about his independence, Schmidt wrote on X that he will receive no compensation and will continue running Brink separately from the founding firms.

“I continue to run Brink, independent of any Consortium member. I’ve committed to a year in this role, maybe I’d do two, but ultimately I see it as a seat that should rotate to other participants over time. My commitment is to Bitcoin, and that doesn’t change.”

Wall Street funding targets Bitcoin security research

Under its initial plan, the consortium will support developers and researchers already working on Bitcoin security, with quantum readiness serving as its first focus, according to Strategy. Schmidt added that the group could finance other security projects if the initial program proves effective.

Protocol decisions will remain outside the consortium’s control. In his X post, Schmidt stated that the group will not adopt collective positions on Bitcoin upgrades, leaving members to direct their funding independently while developers use the network’s existing review process.

Galaxy Digital had committed separate funds to the field before joining the consortium. As crypto.news reported earlier this week, the company opened applications for a $5 million Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative supporting quantum-resistant signatures, wallet migration tools and independent security audits.

According to Galaxy, introducing post-quantum protections would require years of cooperation among Bitcoin Core developers, exchanges, wallet providers, infrastructure companies and users. Its grant program also invites other institutions to contribute money and research to the effort.

Galaxy’s initiative and the consortium pledge have placed $20 million behind the two disclosed programs. The commitments remain separate, however, as Strategy’s consortium allows every member to control its own grants.

Bitcoin’s quantum exposure carries a market cost

Future quantum computers could threaten Bitcoin if they become capable of breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects its wallets, according to the companies and researchers behind the programs. Galaxy noted that current machines cannot perform such an attack and most experts do not expect an immediate danger.

Despite the uncertain timeline, Galaxy argued that preparations must start early because deploying new protections across Bitcoin could take years. The company has prioritized alternative signature algorithms, tools that help users transfer funds into safer wallets and audits that test proposed defenses.

CryptoQuant research cited by Galaxy estimated that around 6.9 million BTC could become exposed if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer broke Bitcoin’s existing cryptography. Using market prices from its announcement, Galaxy valued those potentially vulnerable holdings at about $461 billion.

Citi has reached a similar estimate, according to an earlier crypto.news report. The bank calculated that between 6.5 million and 6.9 million BTC may already have public keys visible on-chain, creating a pool of coins that researchers consider more vulnerable to a future quantum attack.

Lost wallets pose another problem because their owners cannot transfer the coins to addresses protected by updated cryptography. Quantus warned in a previously reported assessment that quantum development may be advancing faster than earlier estimates, which could leave dormant and inaccessible holdings without a practical migration route.

Concern over the issue has also entered Bitcoin valuation models. As crypto.news reported in early June, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards estimated that Bitcoin was trading at a 28% “quantum discount” compared with his projected valuation path toward $120,000.

Bitcoin traded near $62,099 following a sharp selloff when Edwards presented the model. He attributed the discount to investor concern over what he described as slow progress among Bitcoin Core developers on post-quantum signature planning.

Prediction-market traders remain less worried about the immediate timeline. Polymarket data placed the probability of quantum computing breaking Bitcoin by December 2027 at 14%.

With Strategy coordinating institutional participation and Galaxy already accepting grant applications, the funding gives researchers additional resources before quantum computers pose a proven threat. The consortium’s first test will be whether independently directed grants produce usable security tools without influencing Bitcoin’s protocol governance.

Bernstein reiterated that it is still overweight on Bitcoin mining, arguing that the sector’s expanding partnerships are increasingly tied to the power needs of AI data centers. In a Thursday research note shared with Cointelegraph, the firm pointed to a steady stream of AI-related deals throughout July—evidence, it said, that access to electricity is becoming the decisive constraint for AI infrastructure buildouts.

According to Bernstein’s Bitcoin mining industry deal tracker, the number of AI-related transactions recorded in July averaged at least one per week. Combined, those deals total more than 7.5 gigawatts of capacity, or the contracted equivalent of $150 billion across multi-year agreements.

Key takeaways

• Bernstein says Bitcoin miners’ third-party computing capacity remains valuable as AI growth is constrained more by power availability than by software or hardware supply.
• In July, Bernstein’s tracker recorded AI-related deal flow at roughly a weekly pace, totaling over 7.5 GW and the equivalent of $150 billion in multi-year contracted value.
• Recent announcements from Hut 8 and IREN linked mining firms to large-scale AI infrastructure and cloud revenue models.
• Bernstein also highlighted political pushback in the US that could slow new data center construction—making contracted capacity sourced from miners and other providers harder to replicate.

Why Bernstein still favors miners

The core of Bernstein’s argument is that AI data center development is increasingly bottlenecked by electricity access. As power becomes harder to secure, miners and other third-party computing providers—already operating energy-intensive facilities—may be better positioned to supply the incremental capacity AI companies need.

Bernstein’s note framed this as a structural opportunity rather than a short-term market trade. The firm linked the attractiveness of the mining sector to the growing number of partnerships that allow AI-focused operators to secure power and compute capacity through contracted arrangements.

July deal momentum and what it signals

Public market interest in the “AI-miner” theme accelerated after Bitcoin mining companies announced major infrastructure and cloud deals. On Monday, shares tied to AI infrastructure moves posted double-digit gains, following announcements from Hut 8 and IREN.

Hut 8 disclosed a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for its AI data center campus. IREN, meanwhile, announced $2.8 billion in cloud services contracts with AI developers. Bernstein’s upbeat framing aligns with a broader investor focus on miners converting their physical capacity into more predictable, contract-based revenue streams.

As Seeking Alpha contributor The Curious Analyst wrote in a Thursday commentary, IREN appears to be turning an infrastructure advantage into “contracted and more predictable revenue,” while noting execution risk as the key potential downside.

Beyond those two names, other publicly traded miners also expanded their AI ambitions. Earlier in July, MARA Holdings said it planned to acquire a Texas site with up to 2 gigawatts of capacity to support its AI and digital infrastructure business. TeraWulf signed a 20-year data center lease with AI startup Anthropic, which the company said could generate roughly $19 billion in contract revenue. Bitdeer has also moved into AI cloud services and high-performance computing.

Bernstein’s ratings, as reported in the research note shared with Cointelegraph, include an outperform stance on all of the stocks it discussed except MARA, which it rates as market perform. Sector performance reflected the same narrative: CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) was up ahead of the Nasdaq open, with several miner stocks also higher in premarket activity.

US political friction could raise the value of contracted capacity

Bernstein’s analysis also tied the AI-miner alignment to a policy environment that could complicate new data center construction. The firm said bipartisan political pushback is increasingly shaping the timeline and feasibility of building additional facilities, especially amid concerns about local impacts such as water use and electricity costs.

In Texas, a report by the Houston Chronicle said a proposal backed by Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico would strengthen local approval processes and repeal certain tax breaks for AI data centers. In Oregon, US Senator Ron Wyden has publicly raised concerns about water scarcity during drought conditions, arguing that large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day and asking operators to explain how they would reduce groundwater withdrawals to protect local supplies.

At the federal level, the Trump administration published a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” aimed at expanding AI infrastructure without increasing electricity bills for households and small businesses. Separately, state governors released plans to expand the grid to meet rapidly growing AI data center demand, while emphasizing that new facilities should bear the costs they create instead of shifting them to existing residential and small business customers.

For investors, the implication is straightforward: if political and infrastructure constraints delay new capacity coming online, the market may increasingly reward entities that already have power access and can lock in compute demand through multi-year contracts.

What to watch next

With Bernstein pointing to both deal volume and policy headwinds, the next signal for the sector is whether miners can sustain the rate of AI-linked contracting and translate that into longer-term revenue visibility—especially as regulators and local communities continue to scrutinize data center construction.

Solomon’s endorsement contrasts with growing opposition from other major banking executives, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who have argued that the legislation could put traditional banks at a competitive disadvantage by allowing crypto companies to offer yield-bearing stablecoin products that resemble bank deposits without being subject to the same regulatory framework.

Speaking to Fox Business in May, Dimon said he was dissatisfied with the latest version of the bill because “it allows them to effectively pay interest on deposits, stablecoins or something like that, without protection that they should have.”

“The banks will not accept it that way,” Dimon said. “I’m not worried about stablecoins but if it happened I’m telling you I will have nothing to do with it and it will eventually blow up.”

JPMorgan has also warned that crypto legislation should close regulatory gaps rather than create new ones. In a blog post published in June, executives at the bank argued that firms offering products that function like traditional bank accounts should face comparable oversight and consumer protections.

The debate over stablecoin rewards has become one of the biggest sticking points in negotiations over the CLARITY Act. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has argued that banks are lobbying lawmakers to restrict stablecoin rewards because they threaten banks’ deposit-based business models, while banking executives contend that crypto firms offering bank-like products should be regulated like banks.

Uniswap (UNI), one of the largest and longest-running decentralized exchanges, is making a deeper push into tokenized assets, introducing a feature designed to let regulated securities trade on the venue without sacrificing compliance requirements.

The decentralized exchange’s developer, Uniswap Labs, is rolling out “Permissioned Pools” on Thursday, a piece of infrastructure that allows issuers of tokenized funds, equities and other regulated assets to restrict trading to approved investors while still using the protocol’s automated market maker.

That “gives issuers a flexible way to enforce their own compliance rules without building separate trading infrastructure,” Ken Ng, head of ecosystem at Uniswap Labs, explained to CoinDesk.

“The next generation of value coming onchain, and it’s trading on Uniswap,” he said.

Launch partners include tokenization firms Securitize (SECZ) and Superstate, along with European digital securities platform Dowgo, all of which plan to use the framework for regulated onchain assets.

Tokenization trend enters DeFi

The move fits into a broader shift across decentralized finance (DeFi), where protocols originally built for open, permissionless trading and lending are increasingly adapting to the needs of financial institutions bringing traditional, regulated real-world assets (RWA) onto blockchain rails. One example for that is Aave, the largest decentralized lender, which rolled out Horizon, an institutional lending venue for tokenized assets.